
Class JEBASU 

Book J^^Jv^/3_ 

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COPKRrOHT DEPOSm 




CHARLES LAMB 

After a drawing by Robert Hancock in the National Portrait Gallery 



ESSAYS OF ELIA 

FIRST SERIES 



BY 



CHARLES LAMB 




GEORGE ARMSTRONG WAUCHOPE, M.A., Ph.D. 

Professor of English in South Carolina College 





GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK CHICAGO • LONDON 



.\9 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoCoDies Received 

DEC 30 1905 

Copyrtffht Entry , 
/Jjcc-/9- /906 
mASS CL, XXc. Ho, 

/ 3 S ^ ^3 

COPY B, 



4 
_ IX v'^ 



Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Copyright, 1904, 1905, by 
GEORGE ARMSTRONG WAUCHOPE 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

55.12 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



TO 
MY BELOVED COLLEAGUE AND REVERED FRIEND 

CRITIC, LOVER, AND MASTER OF OUR MOTHER TONGUE 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 

AS 

A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE AND RESPECT 



PREFACE 



A LARGER volume of the Essays of Charles Lamb was issued 
from the Athenaeum Press by the present editor in February, 
1904. Since then, the Essays of Elia (First Series) having 
been included in the College Entrance Requirements, this edi- 
tion has been prepared with special reference to the needs of 
our secondary schools. Although much of the matter of the 
earlier and fuller work has been used, this book is in many 
respects a new one. Not to infringe upon the rights of the 
teacher, the beautiful and pathetic story of Lamb's life has 
been left untold, and only a few suggestions as to methods of 
study have been made. To avoid similar sins against the pupil, 
the plan of not giving information that is easily accessible has 
been adhered to. The right of personal research — a whole- 
some stimulus to interest — is respected in this edition, but 
help is offered where help is needed. In criticism, analyses of 
style and structure, and in notes on recondite allusions, the 
book will, I believe, be found reasonably full. 

After carefully collating four standard English editions of 
the Essays of Elia, the editor has followed closely the excel- 
lent text of Mr. Richard Heme Shepherd (London : Chatto 
& Windus, 1898), which has the advantage of being based 
directly on the text of the two volumes of 1823 and 1833, 
issued under Lamb's own eye. The spelling and the use of 
points and capitals is, therefore, substantially that approved 
by the author. Several passages which Lamb suppressed have 
been restored from the magazines in which the essays originally 
appeared, as the personal reasons that caused their omission 



VI PREFACE 

now no longer exist. It has seemed best to retain Lamb's own 
notes on the text as footnotes. 

The section on works of reference, and specific acknowledg- 
ments in the Introduction and Notes, will sufficiently indicate 
the indebtedness of the editor, which is too multifarious to be 
here set down. A number of Lamb's allusions and quotations 
have defied all attempts of the editor to trace them, and any 
information throwing light on such passages will be gratefully 

appreciated. 

G. A. W. 

Columbia, S.C. 
August, 1905 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 



I. Chief Events of Lamb's Life . 
II. Lamb's Personality and Influence 

III. Style and Matter of the Essays 

IV. Library References . . . . 



PAGE 

ix 
xi 

. xxiv 
^xxiv 



ESSAYS OF ELIA 



^^\. A Character of the Late Elia . . . . i 

II. The South-Sea House 6 

HI. Oxford in the Vacation . . . . . • ^5 
IV. Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago . 23 

<>*V. The Two Races of Men 38 

^\. New Year's Eve 44 

A^II. Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist . . . '52 

VIII. Valentine's Day 60 

-^IX. A Quakers' Meeting -63 

(^X. My Relations 69 

L-'XI. Mackery End, in Hertfordshire .... 76 

XII. Imperfect Sympathies 82 

. XIII. The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple . . 91 
I^XIV. Witches and Other Night-Fears , . . .104 

XV. Grace before Meat m 

XVI. Dream-Children: A Reverie 119 

XVII. On Some of the Old Actors 123 

XVIII. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers . . . -137 
^r<XIX. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig .... 145 

XX. On the Acting of Munden 153 

XXI. Munden's Farewell 15^ 

vii 



vm . CONTENTS 



PAGE 



v^^XII. A Chapter on Ears 159 

^^^XXIII. All Fools' Day 166 

XXIV. The Old and the New Schoolmaster . .170 

XXV. My First Play 180 

(yKXVl. Modern Gallantry 185 

XXVII. Distant Correspondents 189 

XXVIII. A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the 

Metropolis 196 

(/xXIX. A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of 

Married People 205 

XXX. On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Cen- 
tury 213 

NOTES 227 

FOREIGN TERMS AND QUOTATIONS . . . .293 

INDEX 295 



INTRODUCTION 

I. CHIEF EVENTS OF LAMB'S LIFE 

{Arranged chronologically) 

1775 February 10, born in Crown-office Row, Temple, London. 

1 78 1 Pupil in William Bird's school in Fetter Lane. 

1 782-1 789 October, enters Christ's Hospital; schoolmates are 
Leigh Hunt and Coleridge ; becomes Deputy Grecian 
under Rev. James Boyer ; vacations spent at Blakesware 
in Hertfordshire. 

1789? Receives clerkship in the South-Sea House; love affair 
with Ann Simmons (i 789-1 795). 

1792 April 5, appointed clerk in the East India House; meet- 
ings with Coleridge at the " Salutation and Cat" Tavern ; 
sees Mrs. Siddons. 

1 795-1 796 Takes lodgings in Little Queen Street, Holborn ; 
meets Robert Southey ; spends six weeks in madhouse 
at Hoxton. 

1796 Lamb's sonnets published with Coleridge's poems ; Sep- 

tember, Mary Lamb kills her mother and is confined 
in madhouse. 

1797 Charles and Mary begin their "life of dual loneliness"; 

visits to Southey in Hampshire and to Coleridge at Nether 
Stowey. 

1798 Publication of A Tale of Rosamufid Gray and The Old 

Familiar Faces. 

1799 Meets Godwin and Manning ; revisits Hertfordshire. 

1800 Removes with Mary to Chapel Street, Pentonville, where they 

are "shunned and marked"; affair with Hester Savary; 
removes to No. 16 Mitre Court Buildings in the Temple ; 
visits from and to Coleridge ; meets the Words worths, 
ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

1 800-1 803 Contributor to the MorniJig Post, A Ibioii, and Morning 

Chronicle. 
1802 Publication of John Woodvil, Fragments of Burton, and 

Ballads. 

1805 Mary in asylum a month ; Lamb writes Farewell to Tobacco. 

1806 Lamb's farce, Mr. H., fails at Drury Lane Theater ; begins 

to give Wednesday-night parties. 

1807 Tales from Shakespeare published jointly by Charles and 

Mary. 

1808 Adventures of Ulysses and Specijnens of Etiglish Dramatic 

Poets published. 

1809 Takes lodgings at 34 Southampton Buildings, Chancery 

Lane, thence to chambers No. 4, Inner Temple Lane ; 
Wednesday-night parties flourish ; joint publication of 
Mrs. Leicester'' s School and Poetry for Children. 

1810 Visit to Hazlitt at Winterslow ; visit to Oxford; Mary in 

asylum. 

18 1 1 Publication of essays on The Genius and Character of 

Hogarth and The Tragedies of Shakespeare in the 
Reflector J Gifford attacks Lamb in the Quarterly 
Review. 
181 5 Meets Talfourd; visit from Wordsworth; Mary in asylum 
ten weeks. 

1817 Takes lodgings in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden; 

meets the actors Munden, Elliston, and Miss Kelly. 

181 8 Pubhcation of Lamb's Cojnplete Works in two volumes 

(Chas. Oilier). 

1822 Death of John Lamb; trip to Paris ; writes Coifessions of 

a Drunkard. 

1823 The Essays of Elia, published by Taylor and Hessey ; 

controversy with Southey ; removes to a cottage in Cole- 
brook Row, Islington ; writes A Character of the Late 
Elia. By a Friend, and seven essays for the London. 
1825 March, Lamb retired on pension of ^450 a year by the 
directors of the India House ; writes four essays for the 
London, 2l hoax Metnoir of Liston, Horns, and Letter to 
aji Old Ge?itleman. 



INTRODUCTION XI 

1826 Writes for the New Monthly Magazine j writes The Con- 

fidant^ a farce. 

1827 Mary ill in asylum ; removes to Cbaseside, Enfield. 

1828 Contributes Popular Fallacies to the New Monthly. 

1829 Lodges at the Westwoods' ; the stagecoach incident ; Mary 

ill. 

1830 Moxon publishes Lamb's Album Verses j Lamb removes 

for a short while to London, then returns to Enfield ; 
Mary's illness increases. 

1 83 1 Contributes Peter'^s Net to the Englishman'' s Magazine. 

1833 Lodges with Walden at Bay Cottage, Edmonton ; Mary 

very ill and Charles' health poor ; Moxon publishes the 
Last Essays of Elia. 

1834 Death of Coleridge; death of Lamb, December 27, and 

burial at Edmonton. 
1847 May 20, Mary dies in private asylum. 



11. LAMB'S PERSONALITY AND INFLUENCE 

De Quincey has remarked that in order to appreciate Lamb 
it is necessary to understand his character and temperament.^ 
A knowledge of the man, his likes and dislikes, his whims, 
caprices, and fancies, is in fact the master key which alone 
will unlock the treasures of his writings. Charles Lamb was a 
most paradoxical character, and his personality is projected to 
a remarkable extent into all his literary work. The correct 
interpretation, therefore, of any particular passage may depend 
upon our insight into the peculiar bias of the writer's mind. 
The coy and wayward Elia should, of all essayists, be approached 
in a friendly and unprejudiced spirit. Recognizing this impor- 
tant personal equation, therefore, the student of Lamb should 
not lose sight of the unconscious reaction of his character and 
life on his work, and should set himself the pleasant task of 
1 De Quincey's Works, Vol. Ill, p. 53, Masson ed. 



Xll INTRODUCTION 

discovering and tracing out some of these hidden undercurrents 
of influence. 

Lamb's most obvious trait was his artistic temperament, and 
a recognition of this fact by the student at the outset is funda- 
mental. There was a touch of the bohemian in him which 
revealed itself in his tastes and habits. He showed a good- 
humored contempt for modern affectations and conventionali- 
ties, and cultivated the old-fashioned in speech and bearing. 
He was a lover of streets and shops, of libraries and theaters, 
of rare prints and first editions, of the cheerful glass and a 
rubber at whist. A scorner of the commonplace, he was an 
uncompromising enemy of Philistinism with its cant, self-satis- 
faction, and materialism. It is not strange that a man thus 
constituted should have created a style unique in literature, 
and made it an instrument adequate to the expression of his 
quaint and nimble mind. 

As a balance to the artist in Lamb was a fine judicial poise of 
intellect. This wholesome quahty saved him from the excesses 
of youthful enthusiasm. Like his friend Hazlitt, he was ever 
a seeker of essential truth. With the courage and confidence 
of a true philosopher, he retried all questions at the bar of 
his own reason, and rendered fresh verdicts based on justice, 
conservatism, and sympathy with the best in human nature. 

Another quality inherent in Lamb was his magnanimity, along 
with its counterpart, modesty. He is egotistical, but with the 
gentle self-assertion which is fully justified by the worth and 
interest of his ideas. He never, however, takes himself or his 
views too seriously, and his very egotism is, like Falstaff's lying, 
felt to be merely a genial affectation of manner assumed for 
the double purpose of amusing himself and the reader. 

Lamb was not lacking, as some have supposed, in the stuff 
of true manly courage. Many have been misled by the tender 
epithets of "frolic" and "gentle-hearted," given him by 
his friends, or by his own playful self-confessions, and have 



INTRODUCTION xui 

ill-ad visedly judged him weak, frivolous, and timid. He was, on 
the contrary, strong to suffer and endure. One need take 
only a cursory survey of his career to find such evidences of his 
fortitude in the face of petty annoyances and appalling misfor- 
tunes as should place him on the roll of the heroes of humble 
life. His exasperating impediment of speech, his bitter dis- 
appointment at being debarred from any congenial profession, 
the dreadful taint of insanity in his blood, his sister's madness 
with its tragic sequel and his voluntary self-sacrifice as her 
guardian, the constant vexations of business life, and the never- 
ending pinch of poverty and ill health, — all this was enough 
to excuse Lamb had he been the most morbid and fretful of 
men. On the contrary, his troubles served but to mellow a 
rarely sweet and happy disposition and rendered him more 
unselfish and benevolent. Since death removed the sacred 
veil of domestic sorrow, the world has known what caused the 
pathetic sadness in those eyes which were wont to twinkle with 
the most tricksy merriment. 

It is equally true that Lamb possessed many so-called 
feminine traits. This bisexual nature, as Furnivall calls it in 
Shakespeare, is one of the most attractive characteristics of 
his imaginative mind. The bravest souls are the most tender. 
Mary Lamb was noted for her directness and common sense. 
In her brother, however, there was the suggestion of posing, 
an incorrigible fondness for make-believe, a mischievous play- 
ing with life which was delightful when one realized his rever- 
ence for its serious aspects. His favorite attitude to the reader 
is that of one chatting familiarly with a companion. Not even 
in his open letter to Southey in the famous controversy did he 
assume the air of the slashing critics of the day, and abuse or 
browbeat his opponent. His essays, though more polished than 
his letters, move in a plane scarcely more elevated than the 
epistolary. " They are all carefully elaborated," says Talfourd, 
"yet never were works written in a higher defiance to the 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

conventional pomp of style." Even when Lamb is argumen- 
tative he is never dogmatic. His purpose is not to demohsh 
the position of an imaginary antagonist, but to win a friend's 
approving nod or foil the smile of incredulity. He rarely 
makes a categorical assertion of some matter of opinion except 
it be half in jest, and his whole bearing is persuasive and 
winning. He aims to entertain, not to arouse debate. 

The Essays of Elia, being candidly personal in atmosphere 
and structure, contain a vast deal of autobiographical material. 
" In his various essays," says Nicoll, " he has left a faithful 
and true portrait of himself, with all of his out-of-the-way 
humour and opinions ; and irresistibly attractive the portrait 
is." ^ What Lamb says of himself, however, should be accepted 
guardedly. He had, in Ainger's happy phrase, "a turn for 
the opposite." One cannot read too warily, for example, 
the sketch of his own character in his inimitable A Character 
of the Late Elia. By a Erie fid. There a charming and par- 
donable egotism is masked under a veil of self-depreciation. 
One must be circumspect indeed not to be entrapped by a man 
who can thus gravely preach his own funeral discourse. 

Lamb was incorrigibly fond of hoaxing, mystification, and 
practical joking. He valued himself, in fact, on being "a 
matter-of-He-man," beUeving truth to be too precious to be 
wasted upon everybody. His lying Memoir of Liston is a clever 
mock biography, which the public, misled by its jumble of fact 
and fiction, took seriously — to the immense amusement of the 
author. Nothing of the sort had been so successful since 
the appearance of Gulliver'' s Travels!^ When the authorship of 
the Waverley Novels was a general subject of conjecture, Lamb 
told George Dyer in strictest confidence that they were the 
work of Lord Castlereagh, whereupon his innocent schoolmate 
hurried away to whisper it in the ear of Leigh Hunt, " who as 

^ Nicoll's Landmarks of English Literature, p. 368. 
2 See Letter to Miss Hutchinson, January 20, 1825. 



INTRODUCTION XV 

a public writer ought to hear the latest news." ^ When Man- 
ning was about to return home from China after several years' 
absence, Lamb wrote a letter in which he tells him " not to 
expect to see the same England again which you left ; few of 
your old friends will remember you; " ^ then mentioning the 
deaths of Mary, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, he adds that he 
himself is now in an asylum. The next day he wrote another 
letter correcting these dismal statements and mailed it to St. 
Helena to meet his friend on the way home. The spirit which 
prompted such pleasantries with intimate friends comes out in 
the essays in curious perversions of fact which serve the author's 
purpose of puzzling or shocking his readers. 

Lamb showed his contemporaries how to combine business 
with culture. His example of industry, prudence, and inde- 
pendence was a wholesome one in an age when men of letters 
were notoriously visionary and unpractical. As a clerk he 
paid , the most careful attention to business. So far as is 
known, no complaint was ever made of his being negligent 
in the performance of his duties, and his employers showed 
their appreciation of his services by granting him many leaves 
of absence, and finally retiring him on a handsome pension. 
He was at his desk in the India House punctually at ten and 
remained till four o'clock daily. He then returned to his 
rooms and dined with his sister at half-past four, after which 
he was in the habit of taking a long walk for exercise. 

Lamb was essentially a town man, and was never quite at 
home oif the streets of London. His essays picture the dehghts 
of city life much as Wordsworth's poems reveal the charms of 
country hfe. He confessed that he was " not romance-bit 
about nature," but felt "as airy up four pair of stairs as in the 
country." He was one "that loved to be at home in crowds." 

1 Final Mejnorials of Charles Lamb, Chap. IX, p. 359. 

2 See "Letter to Richard Manning," December 25, 1815, TaLfourd 
ed., p. 268. 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

" Separate from the pleasure of your company," he wrote to 
Wordsworth, " I don't much care if I never see a mountain in 
my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I have 
formed as many and intense local attachments, as any of you 
mountaineers can have done with dead nature. . . . The 
wonder of these sights impels me into night walks about her 
crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand 
from fullness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must 
be strange to you ; so are your rural emotions to me."^ 

With his high-strung nature, Lamb had his periods of depres- 
sion as well as elation. His health was not uniformly good ; 
he was a great sufferer from nervousness and headaches, which 
were aggravated by office confinement, late hours, and impru- 
dent diet. His low spirits show themselves less in the essays 
than in his letters, in writing which he solaced many dreary 
hours in the intervals of business. At times he felt himself 
hopelessly condemned to " the drudgery of the desk's dead 
wood," while opportunity for the employment of his literary 
tastes and talents continually receded. The burden of some 
of his letters is that he sadly lacked leisure, he was bothered 
by visitors whom he called " friendly harpies," he was so 
"smoky with last night's ten pipes" that he must leave off 
writing, and he was extra-worked auditing warehousekeepers' 
accounts in his "candlelight fog-den at Leadenhall." "My 
theory," said he to Wordsworth gloomily, " is to enjoy life but 
my practice is against it." 

In arriving at a fair estimate of Lamb, we must take also 
into account the fact that he was disappointed in his early 
Hterary ambitions. He grew restless in the monotonous tread- 
mill of daily toil; yet this very drudgery saved him from a 
garret in Grub Street or the humiliating necessity of seeking 
a patron. Intellectual defeat was yet harder to bear. How 
t)itter must have been his sense of failure as he successively 
1" Letter to Wordsworth," January 30, 1801. 



INTRODUCTION XVU 

abandoned hope of winning renown in the alluring fields of 
poetry, fiction, the drama, and journalism. His mother's 
murder shattered his poetic aspirations ; his adherence to an 
unhealthy and decadent school of romance proved disastrous 
to Rosamu7id Gray; the flimsy plots oi John Woodinl and 

Mr. H caused the first to fail of acceptance and the 

latter to be hissed from the stage; and on account of his 
ignorance of politics combined with the impossible demands 
of the daily humorous paragraph, three party journals dispensed 
with his services. 

His correspondence was the single field of literary activity 
which he found well suited to his peculiar bent. The com- 
position of his letters, many of which were future essays in 
the rough, was good preparation for the more pretentious 
work of Elia in the London. All this early groping after a 
career in letters, however, unsatisfactory though it was, did 
serve as an indispensable training in style. Each effort con- 
tributed something to the formation of the wonderful whole : 
the verses refined his sense of rhythm and diction; the 
journalism expanded his power of humorous observation ; the 
dramas sharpened his turn for dialogue and witty expression ; 
the stories developed his skill in narration and analysis of 
character; and the letters furnished that friendly attitude to 
the reader which every one finds so attractive, and suggested 
an interesting class of subjects. 

The influence of Lamb upon the literary life of his own time 
should not be overlooked. His Wednesday-evening parties are 
famous to this day. Next to the gatherings at the Holland 
House, those at Lamb's were the most interesting in London. 
The assemblages of distinguished men in the luxurious parlors 
of the noble lord were more brilliant and imposing ; but the 
men who met in the humble but hospitable chambers of 
Charles and Mary Lamb, and partook of their simple teas, 
contributed more to the intellectual Hfe of the metropolis 



XVlll INTRODUCTION 

and preserved the traditions of good comradeship associated 
with Raleigh's Club at the Mermaid and Dr. Johnson's at 
the Turk's Head. If there was more of pohtics at the earl's, 
there was more of literature at the clerk's. The company 
that met at Lamb's was not only homogeneous in spirit but 
was fairly representative of London life. Among the regular 
guests were Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Lloyd, Godwin, " Barry 
Cornwall," Robinson, Field, Dyer, Barnes, the editor of the 
Thnes, Admiral Burney, and the actors Liston and Charles 
Kemble. Occasionally Wordsworth, De Quincey, and Cole- 
ridge were present when they happened to be in town. 
Lamb's house was indeed a fountain head from which flowed 
a stream of criticism of art, Hterature, philosophy, religion, 
politics, and the stage, that fertilized the mind of young 
England to an extent of which the agents themselves were 
only half conscious. 

In all that assemblage of gifted men it is no derogation to 
the visitors to say that their host was the most remarkable. 
Hood, Crossley, Procter, Patmore, and all who knew him, 
agree substantially as to hfs appearance. Talfourd has left us 
perhaps the best pen sketch of Lamb. '* Methinks I see him 
before me now," he writes, "as he appeared then. ... A 
light frame, so fragile that it seemed as if a breath would 
overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, was surmounted by a 
head of form and expression the most noble and sweet. His 
black hair curled crisply about an expanded forehead ; his 
eyes, softly brown, twinkled with varying expression, though 
the prevalent feeling was sad. . . . Who shall describe his 
countenance, catch its quivering sweetness, and fix it forever 
in words? Deep thought, striving with humour; the Hnes of 
suffering wreathed in cordial mirth ; and his smile of painful 
sweetness, present an image to the mind it can as little describe 
as lose. His personal appearance and manner are not unfitly 
characterized by what he himself says in one of his letters to 



INTRODUCTION xix 

Manning, of Braham, ' a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, 
and the angel.' "^ 

In the home where Mary Lamb presided there was plain 
living and high thirlking. The flow of soul, however, was 
not absent from this feast of reason. We turn again to 
Talfourd's delightful pen for this picture of one of the suppers. 
" Meanwhile Becky lays the cloth on the side-table, under the 
direction of the most quiet, sensible and kind of women, who 
soon compels the younger and more hungry of the guests to 
partake largely of the cold roast lamb or boiled beef, the 
heaps of smoking roasted potatoes, and the vast jug of porter. 
Perfect freedom prevails. ... As the hot water and its 
accompaniments appear, and the severities of whist relax, the 
light of conversation thickens. Lamb stammers out puns 
suggestive of wisdom for happy Barron Field to admire and 
echo ; the various driblets of talk combine into a stream, while 
Miss Lamb moves gently about to see that each modest 
stranger is duly served."^ 

Lamb was a man of strong appetite, over which he sometimes 
failed to exercise due restraint. His sister often wrote of his 
being " smoky and drinky." He was, like Chaucer's franklin, 
Epicurus' true son. His taste for pastries, roast pig, partridge, 
hare, and shoulder of mutton is evident from numerous allusions 
in his letters and essays. Taste is the sense least often appealed 
to by writers, but Lamb has succeeded in making some excel- 
lent literature out of the pleasures of the palate. Perhaps he 
thought it equally clever and far kinder to make the mouths 
of his readers water than their eyes. Whatever may have been 
his artistic or ethical motive, Elia's Roast Pig, Chimney- 
Sweepers, Chrisfs Hospital, Grace before Meat, and other 
savory papers, form a body of succulent hterature which is 
little short of an apotheosis of the appetite. 

1 Talfourd's Letters of Charles Lamb, Chap. X, p. 257. 

2 Final Memorials, pp. 348, 349. 



XX INTRODUCTION 

Elia was also addicted to the pipe and preferred the strong- 
est varieties of " the great plant." He began the use of 
tobacco as a substitute for strong drinks, but the counter- 
attraction soon became a new form of slavery. In one of his 
moods of reformation he abjured the fragrant weed and wrote 
his lyric Farewell to Tobacco, Unhappily this proved but the 
first of a series of adieux to his " friendly traitress." On one 
occasion Doctor Parr, who smoked the mildest tobacco in 
a pipe half filled with salt, saw Lamb puffing furiously at a 
pipe crammed with the strongest mixture, and asked him 
how he had acquired the power of smoking at such a rate. 
Lamb repHed, '' I toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after 
virtue." 

It cannot be denied that Lamb's most serious frailty was 
his habit of partaking too freely of alcoholic stimulants. He 
inherited a constitution which craved intoxicants, and this 
strengthened the temptation. In ales, wines, gin-and-water, 
he found temporary relief from bashfulness, low spirits, and 
the cares and sorrov/s of existence. A further effect was that 
they enabled him partly to overcome his stammering and to 
throw off the consciousness of other personal oddities. His 
system was so sensitive to their effects that a single glass 
sufficed to start the marvelous flow of wit and fancy. " It 
created nothing," says Patmore, " but it was the talisman that 
not only unlocked the poor casket in which the rich thoughts of 
Charles Lamb were shut up, but set in motion their machinery 
in the absence of which they would have lain like gems in the 
mountain or gold in the mine."^ 

The same agent must be held responsible for the reckless 
buffoonery with which he sometimes entertained his company, 
and also the moods of perversity during which he made hfe a 
burden for the uncongenial. At such times he took delight in 
shocking strangers and confirming any unfavorable impression 
1 Barry Cornwall's Charles Lamb: A Memoir, p. 57. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

by assuming an attitude of mockery or frivolity.^ This explains 
the impression left on Macready and Carlyle. The great actor 
records with disgust " one odd saying of Lamb's that the last 
breath he drew in he wished might be through a pipe and 
exhaled in a pun." One can also readily see why Elia 
appeared to the stern Scotch seer " sl sorry phenomenon," and 
his talk " contemptibly small and a ghastly make-believe of 
wit."^ Lamb, however, lavished such a wealth of aifection 
and pathetic tenderness on his sister and such a store of gen- 
erosity and good comradeship on his friends, and kept his 
writings so free from all unpleasing notes, that his readers are 
only too willing to condone his shortcomings. 

Of all Lamb's friendships that with Coleridge was the 
strongest and mutually the most helpful. Beginning at the 
Blue Coat School, it ripened as the years passed, and ended 
only with the death of the poet. It is one of the most beauti- 
ful in literary history. Coleridge encouraged Lamb to follow 
literature as an avocation, and published the first work of his 
friend with his own. Lamb amply returned the favor by giving 
Coleridge the benefit of his fine powers of criticism. The 
appreciation of the latter is evident in a letter written to 
Cottle in 1797, in which he says, "I much wish to send my 
' Visions of the Maid of Arc ' and my corrections to Words- 
worth, who lives not above twenty miles from me, and to Lamb, 
whose taste and judgment I see reason to think more correct 
and philosophical than my own, which yet I place pretty 
high." 3 

After the fatal tragedy in 1796, Coleridge was the one friend 
to whom Lamb poured out all the anguish of his heart. 
"White, or some of my friends," he wrote, "or the public 
papers by this time may have informed you of the terrible 

1 See Hayden's Autobiography and Journals, p. 216. 

2 Carlyle's Reminiscences, p. 310. 

•^ Campbell's Life of Coleridge, p. xxxii. See also pp. 538 seq. 



XXll INTRODUCTION 

calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you 
the outlines : My poor, dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, 
has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only 
time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at 
present in a madhouse, from which I fear she must be moved 
to an hospital. . . . My poor father was slightly wounded, and 
I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr. Norris, of the 
Blue Coat School, has been very kind to us, and we have no 
other friend ; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed, 
and able to do the best that remains to do. . . . God Almighty 
have us well in his keeping!" In a later letter he tells of 
Mary's recovery and of her most affectionate and tender 
concern for what had happened. 

The story of the " life of dual loneliness " and mutual 
devotion which the brother and sister led from this time until 
the death of Charles has hardly its parallel in fact or fiction. 
The guardianship of Mary was at once cheerfully assumed by 
Charles, who cared for the unfortunate woman henceforth with 
the most unselfish affection. Wherever they went they soon 
became "marked people," and were subjected to such petty 
annoyances and persecutions that they were obliged repeat- 
edly to change their lodgings. At irregular intervals Mary 
suffered recurrences of her malady, which ever hung over them 
with its fearful shadow. Even when they ventured to indulge 
in a short excursion during Lamb's vacation, Mary took the 
precaution to have a strait-waistcoat carefully packed in their 
luggage. At last these seizures became so frequent and 
uncertain that they gave up their holiday trips. " Miss Lamb 
experienced," says Talfourd, "and full well understood, pre- 
monitory symptoms of the attack, in restlessness, low fever, 
and the inability to sleep .; and, as gently as possible, prepared 
her brother for the duty he must soon perform ; and thus, 
unless he could stave off the terrible separation till Sunday, 
obliged him to ask leave of absence from the office as if for 



INTRODUCTION XXIU 

a day's pleasure — a bitter mockery ! On one occasion 
Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a httle 
footpath in Hoxton fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, 
on joining them, that they were taking their solemn way to 
the accustomed asylum."^ 

Mary, who was ten years older than Charles, became on her 
part the benefactress and guardian angel of his humble home, 
and looked after his comfort with tender solicitude. All who 
knew her admired her taste, tact, and good sense ; and, being 
herself gifted with no ordinary literary talents, she was able 
not only to preside as a gracious hostess at the Wednesday 
parties, but also to be her brother's helpful companion and 
inspiring collaborator. Something of the love and reverence 
which Charles Lamb felt for this noble woman may be read 
between the lines of a letter written to Dorothy Wordsworth 
in 1805. "I have every reason to suppose," he wrote, *'that 
this illness, Hke all Mary's former ones, will be but tempo- 
rary. But I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead 
to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength is gone, and I 
am like a fool, bereft of her cooperation. I dare not think, 
lest I should think wrong; so used am I to look up to her 
in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all that I 
know of her would be more than I think anybody could 
believe or even understand ; . . • She is older and wiser, 
and better than me, and all my wretched imperfections I cover 
to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would 
share life and death, heaven and hell with me. She lives but 
for me."^ 

"Rich indeed in moral instruction," says De Quincey, "was 
the life of Charles Lamb : and perhaps in one chief result it 
offers to the thoughtful observer a lesson of consolation that 
is awful, and of hope that ought to be immortal, viz., in the 

1 Fi7tal Memorials, pp. 1 31-132 (October 3, 1796). 

2 Works of Charles Lamb, Vol. I, pp. 201-202, Talfourd ed. 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

record which it furnishes that by meekness of submission, and 
by earnest conflict with evil in the spirit of cheerfulness, it is 
possible ultimately to disarm or to blunt the very heaviest of 
curses — even the curse of lunacy." ^ 



III. STYLE AND MATTER OF THE ESSAYS 

Lamb's style is as unique and paradoxical as his personahty. 
It possesses the amiable humor, the well-bred tone, the tender 
pathos, and the airy fancy which made the man so attractive. 
All that was weak, perverse, boisterous, or discourteous has 
evaporated in the processes of composition ; while his genial 
egotism, perfect humanity, piquant philosophy, the essential 
sweetness and light of his nature, remain crystallized. Ernest 
Rhys mentions admiringly " the many fine and rare graces to 
be found in Elia : the art, the fantasy, the charm of style, the 
exquisite sense of words, the temperamental faculty for litera- 
ture at its highest and choicest attainment."^ Saintsbury pro- 
nounces him " the most exquisite and singular, though the 
least prolific, of the literary geniuses " ^ whom the London 
boasted during its brief but brilliant career. To say the least. 
Lamb has by general consent made an exceedingly interest- 
ing and original contribution to English prose. His style is 
eclectic in spirit and composite in form. This is the secret of 
its structure, which though extremely illusive is susceptible 
of analysis. 

Until his forty-fifth year Lamb was engaged in tentative and 
'prentice work, none of which would have given him a high 
permanent reputation. It was only with the establishment of 
the London in 1820 that he found the proper vehicle for his 

1 De Quincey's Works, Vol. V, p. 220, Masson ed. 

2 Essays of Elia, Introduction, p. xiv (Camelot Series). 

3 Saintsbury's History of Nineteenth-Century Literature, p. 181. 



INTRODUCTION XXV 

genius. The fortunate opening was industriously taken advan- 
tage of, and during tire next thirteen years there appeared 
in the London and other periodicals that series of Essays of 
Elia upon which his title to an immortality of fame now securely 
rests. It is not strange that so gifted a person should have 
invented for his use a special instrument which was perfectly 
adequate to the expression of his inimitable mind. 

One of the earliest impressions made on the student of these 
essays is the author's apparently haphazard and incongruous 
choice of themes. Closer investigation, however, will disclose 
the fact that all the subjects group themselves under three or 
four general heads. One class is antiquarian, and includes 
such papers as The South-Sea House, Chrisfs Hospital, and 
The Old Benchers ; another is social, examples being Mrs. 
Battle''s Opinions on Whist, Imperfect Sympathies, Grace 
before Meat, and Old China ; a third is critical, and discusses 
topics of general or philosophic interest, such as Sanity of 
True Genius and Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading. 
Under this classification are found personal reminiscences, 
character sketches, bits of folklore, poetical rhapsodies, and 
criticism. Lamb followed the custom of the Spectator in 
choosing subjects of interest to the unprofessional reader, 
such as holidays, witches, religion, plays, relatives, cooking, 
newspapers, china, famous places and people. Self-confidence 
was shown in the selection of these familiar and often com- 
monplace topics, for any failure here in freshness of style or 
originahty of thought would have been conspicuous, perhaps 
fatal. Elia hands down to the nineteenth century the best 
traditions of the popular eighteenth-century periodical essay. 
" He showed," says Saintsbury, " how the occasional in lit- 
erature might be made classical." He is "an epitome of the 
lighter side of belles lettres,'' and often something more, for 
in addition to entertaining us he teaches us to observe, to 
analyze, to philosophize. 



XXVi INTRODUCTION 

It is important to take into account the external influences, 
as well as the more hidden sj^rings of thought and feeling, 
which helped to mold his style. As to conventional form, 
as well as in choice of subject, he followed the type of the 
personal essay found in the Tatler and the Spectator. Steele 
and Addison were pioneers in making good literature of the 
chitchat of the tea table and the weightier talk of the -coffee- 
house, and thus beguiled the illiterate fops and fine ladies into 
a love of reading. Lamb and the other Cockney essayists 
were the heirs of all this Uterary experience, but they made 
important additions to their heritage. To the wit, correctness, 
philosophy, and common sense of the eighteenth century they 
added the warmth, geniality, freedom, and individuality of the 
nineteenth. 

For Lamb's masters in style and his intellectual affinities we 
must go back to an earlier period. " What appears to the 
hasty reader artificial in Lamb's style," says Ainger, ''was 
natural to him. For in this matter of style he was the product 
of his reading, and from a child his reading had lain in the 
dramatists and generally in the great imaginative writers of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Shakespeare and Milton 
he knew almost by heart ; Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, 
Ford, and Webster were hardly less familiar to him ; and next 
to these, the writers of the so-called metaphysical school, the 
later developments of the Euphuistic fashion had the strongest 
fascination for him. When the fantastic vein took the pedantic- 
humorous shape, as in Burton ; or the metaphysical-humorous, 
as in Sir Thomas Browne ; or where it was combined with true 
poetic sensibility, as in Wither and Marvell, — of these springs 
Lamb had drunk so deeply that his mind was saturated with 
them. His own nature became 'subdued to what it worked 
in.' For him to bear, not only on his style but on the cast 
of his mind and fancy, the mark of these writers, and many 
more in whom genius and eccentricity went together, was no 



INTRODUCTION XXVU 

matter of choice. It was this that constituted the ' self- pleasing 
quaintness ' of his Hterary manner."^ 

The surprising range and variety of Lamb's subjects are an 
index of his mental activity and breadth of sympathy ; but 
the complex and heterogeneous elements that enter into his 
style reveal his sensitiveness to language and his capacity for 
absorbing without loss of originality the best that had preceded 
him. His mind may be thought of as a magic alembic which 
had the virtue of distilling a variety of strange simples into 
a new quintessence beautiful and aromatic. Henry Nelson 
Coleridge in the Etonian asserts that " Charles Lamb writes 
the best, purest, and most genuine English of any man living. 
For genuine Anglicism, which amongst all other essentials of 
excellence in our native literature is now recovering itself 
from the leaden mace of the Rainbler, he is quite a study ; his 
prose is absolutely perfect, it conveys thought without smother- 
ing it in blankets."^ His style kept pace in flexibihty with 
the versatihty of its author, and readily adapted itself to the 
matter in hand. Thus each theme with its respective mood 
finds a natural and effective garb, yet the peculiar, unmistak- 
able touch of Lamb is never absent. It is not exaggeration to 
say that in him English prose style reached its climax, and 
this view is now generally accepted. 

Lamb is one of our most bookish writers. , His essays have 
something suggestive of the musty odor of old folios, always 
the atmosphere of the study. X^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ °^ ^^ highest 
university training, and laid no claim to profound scholarship. 
Few of his essays, however, fail to_slK)^jndusinou^J3JQwsing 
in that rich pasturage of Samuel Salt's library. The works 
of the poets, rhetoricians, and playwrights of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries were his " midnight darlings." It 
was in their fields that he loved to glean. His habit of keeping 

1 The Essays of Elia, p. vii, Ainger ed. 

2 Ibid., p. iv. 



XXVlll INTRODUCTION 

scrapbooks, in which he copied selections from his favorite 
authors, enabled him to make a ready use of the best of what 
he had read. Lamb is an inveterate but happy quoter, and 
many of his quotations are difficult to trace. Some are taken 
from obscure nooks and crannies of literature but little explored 
by even the bookworms of our day. An examination of his 
method of weaving in choice pieces from other authors will 
disclose some interesting facts. Sometimes he quotes inaccu- 
rately or paraphrases as if from memory ; again ne deliberately 
changes the language to suit his context; often he merely 
suggests some familiar passage by a delicately allusive phrasing. 
His style holds in solution a sufficient amount of recondite 
allusion and scholarly reference to please the most learned, 
and at the same time it delights the general reader with its 
racy, idiomatic English and its many echoes of the language 
of the Bible. Thus there are in Lamb's style, aside from its 
substance, many elements that make for permanency. 

Lamb's usual manner is the conversational. The long liter- 
ary correspondence which he conducted with Coleridge, Words- 
worth, Manning, and others was his best training school. We 
have seen how many of his letters are little essays in the germ. 
The essays were composed slowly and with the utmost pains. 
They were not hastily and carelessly dashed off. Their author 
was a master of the art that conceals art, and though the whole 
result may be easy and familiar, each sentence and paragraph 
has received the skillful manipulation of the trained stylist. 
The discursive structure of the essays, the frequent digressions, 
the parentheses, and the abrupt transitions are but devices to 
give them an easy, unconventional tone. The normal plane 
in writing gives opportunity for that rise and fall in feeling 
which afford relief from monotony, like the use of light and 
shade in art. The reader imagines himself listening quietly to 
the fascinating talk of a beloved companion who for the most 
part chats delightfully in a witty or sentimental mood, with 



INTRODUCTION XXIX 

many half-whispered asides, but who now and then warms with 
his theme and rises eloquently into heights of rhapsody or 
apostrophe. 

The quality that has given Lamb his distinctive place in the 
development of English prose is his humor. He was a humor- 
ist in the old historic sense, his humor being the outgrowth of 
his character, and also a talent which he strove to improve by 
cultivation. . There was besides a vast deal of wisdom in his 
wit. As otnei men have labored to become profound or elo- 
quent, so Lamb studied to be humorous. He devoted himself 
painstakingly to placing this gift upon a refined and intellectual 
plane. His habit of making quips on serious matters led the 
critical to charge him with masquerading as a man who took 
himself as a joke, but his friends knew that he "wore a martyr's 
heart beneath his suit of motley and jested that he might not 
weep." Besides, in following his natural bent, he was true 
to his best instincts. Of all the English humorists he most 
resembles Sir Thomas Browne and Thomas Fuller, two of his 
favorite authors. His bizarre vocabulary, coinages from the 
Latin, and his turn for the quaint and unexpected are charac- 
teristics which he has in common with the author of Religio 
Medici; his fondness for verbal quips, figures, and extravagant 
conceits reminds us of The Worthies of E7igland. Coleridge's 
remark on Fuller that " his wit was the stuff and substance of 
his style " applies equally well to Lamb. When we compare 
the letters with the essays we see a tendency and a growth, 
for Elia is the outcome of the habit of seeing and presenting 
things humorously. 

Lamb's humorous effects are produced in such a variety of 
ways that one must read a good deal of him to appreciate his 
versatility. We can indicate here only a few of his many 
devices for getting fun out of a subject. His title of the 
" Last of the Elizabethans " is nowhere better justified than 
in his fondness for verbal humor. He delights in words, and 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

revives the literary standing of the long-neglected pun and 
the conceits so much in vogue in the days of Lyly and Sidney. 
He thus reveals many latent resources of bur vocabulary and 
lends fresh interest to the dictionary. We suddenly come 
across such strange words as hobby-dehoys, manducation, 
periegesis, orgasm, traydrille, obolary, and deodands, and 
discover that he is using learned or unusual terms to dignify 
the commonplace. Less original but very happy is his use 
of the simile, where he expresses his aversion to dying, " I 
am not content to pass away like a weaver's shuttle." Again, 
what an indescribable flavor is imparted to his paper on Poor 
Relatio7is by dropping into the archaic style, "He casually 
looketh in about dinner-time," etc. 

Lamb revels in exaggeration, hyperbole, and the mock 
heroic, and he frequently indulges in burlesque, anticlimax, 
and caricature. One leading form of his humor depends upon 
some oddity or incongruity of character. How delightful is 
the sophistry in the thesis that "the title to property in a book 
is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and 
appreciating the same." How gravely he asserts that "a man 
cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings," and 
how equally cheerfully he announces that a certain undertaker 
"lets lodgings for single gentlemen." "Amanda, have you a 
viidriff\.o bestow? " illustrates his use of burlesque ; the burn- 
ing of the cottages for the purpose of roasting pigs, the mock 
heroic; and his reference to Locke in the same connection, 
the ironical. A specimen of tender and unexpected humor is 
the remark about himself and his sister that " we are generally 
in harmony, with occasional bickerings — as it should be 
among near relations." Ainger aptly calls this " the antithesis 
of irony, — the hiding of a sweet after-taste in a bitter word." 

" No one describes," says Hazlitt, " the manners of the last 
generation so well as Mr. Lamb; with so fine, and yet so 
formal an air; with such vivid obscurity; with such arch 



INTRODUCTION XXXl 

piquancy, such picturesque quaintness, such smiling pathos." ^ 
Lamb has left, at least in his essays, no full-length portraiture 
of character. This is not to be expected. In Heu of this 
he has drawn a whole gallery of pastels or pen-and-ink sketches, 
— dehghtful Jonsonese studies of every man in his humor. 
In his characterization Lamb is neither a satirist nor a carica- 
turist; there is nothing purposely distorted or exaggerated 
about his figures. He does not conceal any oddity of dress 
or manner, he does not hesitate to call attention to any idio- 
syncrasy whether ludicrous or admirable ; but he goes further, 
and with keen insight and a sweet and gentle sympathy he 
makes us feel the essential humanity of the person described. 
He has a faculty nothing short of genius of suggesting char- 
acter by a few rapid touches. How quickly we become 
acquainted with the formal John Tipp, swearing at his little 
orphans, whose rights he is guarding with absolute fidelity ; or 
the noble and sensible Bridget Elia, whose presence of mind, 
though equal to the most pressing trials of life, sometimes 
deserts her upon trifling occasions. There, too, is the men- 
dacious voyager, himself fictitious, who perfectly remembers 
seeing a phoenix in his travels in upper Egypt. And, best of all, 
we repeat the opinions of that rigorous, strenuous old dame, 
Mrs. Battle, who next to her devotions loved a good game of 
whist. Like Dickens, Lamb dissected the humors of his char- 
acters with a loving hand ; there was no malice in his smile and 
his sarcasm was only arch pleasantry. " Seeking his materials," 
says Talfourd, "for the most part in the common paths of life, 
often in the humblest, he gives an importance to everything, 
and sheds a grace over all." In the unpretentious department 
of miniature painting Lamb is an artist of the first rank. 

The scope of this introduction does not admit of an extended 
discussion of all Lamb's literary output. His letters, poems, 
1 Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age, p. 114. 



XXXll INTRODUCTION 

plays, translations, and short stories must remain uncriticized. 
Space remains for only a few remarks on his work as a critic. 
Although widely read and endowed with rare insight and a 
sensitive taste, his limitations as a critic were serious and fun- 
damental. His opinions of men, books, paintings, plays, and 
the conduct of Hfe are based rather on sentiment and pre- 
judice than on reason and technical considerations. His 
judgments, therefore, are often unreliable and open to objec- 
tion, and so are mainly interesting because of their striking 
originality and finished style. Lamb's method is impression- 
istic ; he has almost nothing in common with the more recent 
school of scientific criticism represented by Matthew Arnold. 
Leaving out the biting satire and cruel personahties of Jeffreys, 
Gifford, and Wilson, Lamb is much like his contemporary 
reviewers. Some of the whimsical and paradoxical elements 
of the Elia essays are found also in the critical papers. 

Lamb's merits as well as his limitations as a critic of art are 
seen in his essay On the Ge7ihis and Character of Hogarth. 
This is a case of special pleading, and was written to vindicate 
the noble qualities of the painter's work. The classical school 
of artists had attacked Hogarth on the charge that he was a 
mere caricaturist, a defective draughtsman, and that he showed 
slight knowledge of the human figure. In defense of his 
favorite. Lamb takes the high ground that Hogarth w^as a great 
satirist and moralist, and that he aimed to make a series of 
realistic and dramatic drawings which should depict Hfe in all 
its vigor and variety. What attracted Lamb was the story 
in the pictures overflowing with the humor and pathos of 
humanity. Therefore what seemed to others grotesque and 
horrible was to him amusing or sublime. He ran the risk 
of damaging his cause by overstatement, as with the print of 
Gin Lane, where he missed the real meaning of the picture. 
He judged as a novelist, not as a painter, and found in the 
drawings only what he wished to find there. As a critic of 



INTRODUCTION XXxiu 

art he is unconvincing because of his ignorance of technical 
matters, but his interpretation of the moral power of any- 
particular work is stimulating and therefore valuable. 

In the realm of literature Lamb's critical faculty was deli- 
cate and penetrative. Here again the personal equation 
appears, for the value of his remarks depends largely upon his 
Hke or dislike of the author under consideration. For this 
reason his judgments of his contemporaries are unreliable 
except in the case of friends. " Where his heart was," says 
Ainger, " there his judgment was sound. Where he actively 
disHked, or was passively indifferent, his critical powers 
remained dormant." It is to be expected that he would be 
unappreciative of most of the writers of his own day. He 
admired Coleridge more than Wordsworth, and cared nothing 
for Scott, Shelley, or Byron, whom he did not know personally. 

Lamb's position as a critic now rests on his choice bits of 
criticism of the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, particularly the dramatists contemporary with Shake- 
speare. In his brief comments on the characters in the prin- 
cipal plays of this period is revealed a mind remarkable for 
its poetic sensitiveness and interpretative imagination. In his 
longer critical papers he prefers to take a narrow field and an 
unusual point of view. It is therefore important for the 
reader to get at the precise question which Lamb proposes to 
argue in each case, otherwise his position will seem absurd. 
Thus in his Shakespeare' s Tragedies he discusses certain limita- 
tions of the stage, and makes an admirable argument on the 
proposition that there are intellectual qualities in dramatic 
poetry which cannot be interpreted by the actor's art. 

The time has come when, by eHminating all that does not 
make for permanence, we can fairly estimate Lamb's contribu- 
tion to English prose ; and we may confidently assert that his 
niche in the pantheon of famous authors is definite and 
secure. The happy originaHty of his genius renders him 



XXXIV INTRODUCTION 

singularly free from unfavorable comparison with previous 
writers, from contemporary rivalry, and from the fluctuations 
of critical judgments in the future. All now unite in awarding 
him high praise for the leading part which he bore in the 
rediscovery of the rich treasures of the Elizabethan drama, 
and in the recrudescence of the quaint style of the humorists 
and philosophers of the seventeenth century. Furthermore, 
his inspiring example of combining business and culture in 
the face of appalling difficulties has made him personally the 
best beloved man in our literary history. The Elia papers 
justly take an honored place in the long succession of periodi- 
cal essays that adorn the language. As an expression of their 
author's genial, elastic, and reflective mind they are marvel- 
ously perfect, and alone would entitle Charles Lamb to a 
secure place among the immortals. 



IV. LIBRARY REFERENCES 

I. Editions. There are several complete editions of Lamb's 
writings, the fullest and most satisfactory being Fitzgerald, Life, 
Letters, and Writings of Charles Lajjib (1876) in 6 vols. ; Ainger, 
Works of Charles L^amb (i 883-1 888) in 6 vols.; and Crowell, 
Works of Charles Lamb (1882) in 5 vols., now out of print. 
Included in the last-named edition are " The Letters of Charles 
Lamb with a Sketch of His Life" (1837) and "The Final 
Memorials of Charles Lamb" (1848), both by Talfourd, and both 
authoritative works having the interest and value of autobiography. 

Ainger, Letters of Charles La?nb in 2 vols., is the best collection 
of his correspondence. The cheapest one-volume edition complete 
is Shepherd's, published by Chatto and Windus. A centenary 
edition of his complete works was published by Routledge. 
Moxon's edition was one of the earliest, but does not include the 
letters. Among the best editions of the Essays of Elia are Ainger's 
(containing many interesting notes for the general reader) ; Walter 
Scott's, with a brief introduction by Ernest Rhys (no notes) ; Chatto 



INTRODUCTION XXXV 

and Windus'; Kent's (notes few and inaccurate) ; and Bliss Perry's 
" Selections from Lamb " in his Little Masterpieces. None of the 
foregoing editions are intended for students. W. Carew Hazlitt 
compiled a useful volume entitled Charles and Mary Lamb : 
Poems ^ Letters^ and Remains (1874). 

II, Biography and C7-iticis7n. Ainger's Charles Lamb (1882) 
in the " English Men of Letters " series is the most important life 
of Lamb, and contains a full analysis and criticism of his works. 
The introduction to the same author's edition of the Essays of 
Elia is an admirable critique. A good short life of Lamb, com- 
bined with criticism, by the same writer, is found in the Dictionary 
of National Biography^ Vol. XXX, pp. 423-429. De Quincey's 
biographical sketch in his complete works, Vol. V, pp. 215-258 
(Masson ed.), is the most eloquent and philosophical monograph 
on Lamb. Charles Lamb : A Memoir (1866) by Procter (Barry 
Cornwall) has much original material. Cradock's Charles La7nb, 
Peabody's Charles Lamb at his Desk (1872), and Marten's Ln the 
Footprints of Charles Lamb^ are all full of personal interest and 
background. 

Saintsbury's estimate of Lamb in his History of Nineteenth- 
Century Literature (1896) is just and penetrative. Swinburne's 
" Charles Lamb and George Wither" in his Miscellanies (1895) 
is a brilliant and enthusiastic study of Lamb as a critic. Mrs. 
Oliphant's discussion of Lamb in her Literary History of England 
(1894), Vol, II, pp. 1-18, is merely a repetition of Talfourd's impres- 
sions. Bliss Perry 's little essay in his " Selections " is fresh and 
suggestive. The last chapter of Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age (1825) 
is a glowing appreciation. The same writer's beautiful essay On 
Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen narrates the conversation 
at one of Lamb's parties. 

Much interesting anecdotage and critical comment will be found 
scattered through the following books : Gilchrist's Life of Mary 
Lambj Sandford's Thomas Poole and his Friends and Elia 
and Geoffrey Crayon; Haydon's Autobiography and fournals 
(1853); H, C. Robinson's Diary j Leigh Hunt's Autobiography 
(1850); Thomas Hood's Literary Remi7iiscences (1839); ^- ^• 
Patmore's My Friends ajid Acquaintances (1854); W. C. Hazlitt's 



XXXVl INTRODUCTION 

Memoirs of William Hazlitt {1^6^)] Mrs. Matthews' Me?noir 
of Charles Matthews (1838); Cottle's Early Recollections of 
Coleridge (1837); Gillman's, Campbell's, and Alsop's biographies 
of Coleridge; Southey's Life and Correspondences Barton's 
Poems, Life, and Letters (1849); and Augustine Birrell's Obiter 
Dicta (1887). 

The following magazine articles show considerable research: 
"The Sad Side of the Humorist's Life" in Littell, January, 1832 ; 
Mary Cowden Clarke's "Recollections of Mary Lamb" in the 
same magazine for April, 1858; "Charles Lamb and Sydney 
Smith," a strong piece of comparative criticism, in the Atlantic, 
March, 1859; " Concerning Charles Lamb " in Scribner''s, March, 
1876; and "Gleanings after his Biographers" in Macmillan''s, 
April, 1867. 

The most complete bibliography of Lamb is that by E. D. 
North, appended to Marten's In the Footpri7its of Charles Lamb 
(1890). 

Since the earlier volume went to press, Mr. William Macdonald's 
edition of Lamb's works, in twelve volumes beautifully illustrated 
by Mr. C. E. Brock, has appeared. This edition must take preced- 
ence over all others, not only on account of its reasonable and 
congruous arrangement and the sanity and excellence of its edito- 
rial equipment, but because it contains a considerable amount of 
new and important matter. 

Mr. E. V. Lucas has also recently edited a collection of Lamb's 
correspondence, which includes a large number of letters not 
hitherto pubHshed. 



ESSAYS OF ELIA 

I. A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA 
By a Friend 

This gentleman, who for some months past had been in a 
decHning way, hath at length paid his final tribute to nature. 
He just lived long enough (it was what he wished) to see his 
papers collected into a volume. The pages of the London 
Magazine will henceforth know him no more. 5 

Exactly at twelve last night, his queer spirit departed ; and 
the bells of Saint Bride's rang him out with the old year. 
The mournful vibrations were caught in the dining-room of 
his friends T, and H., and the company, assembled there to 
welcome in another First of January, checked their carous- 10 
als in mid-mirth, and were silent. Janus wept. The gentle 

P r, in a whisper, signified his intention of devoting an 

elegy; and Allan C, nobly forgetful of his countrymen's 
wrongs, vowed a memoir to his manes full and friendly as a 
*'Tale of Lyddalcross." 15 

To say truth, it is time he were gone. The humour of the 
thing, if there was ever much in it, was pretty well exhausted ; 
and a two years' and a half existence has been a tolerable 
duration for a phantom. 

I am now at hberty to confess, that much which I have 20 
heard objected to my late friend's writings was well-founded. 
Crude they are, I grant you — a sort of unhcked, incondite 
things — villanously pranked in an affected array of antique 
modes and phrases. They had not been his^ if they had been 



2 A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA 

Other than such; and better it is, that a writer should be 
natural in a self-pleasing quaintness, than to affect a natural- 
ness (so called) that should be strange to him. Egotistical 
they have been pronounced by some who did not know, that 

5 what he tells us, as of himself, was often true only (historically) 
of another; as in a former Essay (to save many instances) — 
where under \k\Q first person (his favourite figure) he shadows 
forth the forlorn estate of a country-boy placed at a London 
school, far from his friends and connexions — in direct oppo- 

10 sition to his own early history. If it be egotism to imply 
and twine with his own identity the griefs and affections of 
another — making himself many, or reducing many unto him- 
self — then is the skilful novelist, who all along brings in his 
hero, or heroine, speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist 

15 of all; who yet has never, therefore, been accused of that 
narrowness. And how shall the intenser dramatist escape 
being faulty, who doubtless, under cover of passion uttered 
by another, oftentimes gives blameless vent to his most inward 
feelings, and expresses his own story modestly? 

20 My late friend was in many respects a singular character. 
Those who did not like him, hated him ; and some, who once 
liked him, afterwards became his bitterest haters. The truth 
is, he gave himself too little concern what he uttered, and in 
whose presence. He observed neither time nor place, and 

25 would e'en out with what came uppermost. With the severe 
rehgionist he would pass for a free-thinker; while the other 
faction set him down for a bigot, or persuaded themselves that 
he belied his sentiments. Few understood him ; and I am 
not certain that at all times he quite understood himself. He 

30 too much affected that dangerous figure — irony. He sowed 
doubtful speeches, and reaped plain, unequivocal hatred. — 
He would interrupt the gravest discussion with some light 
jest ; and yet, perhaps, not quite irrelevant in ears that could 
understand it. Your long and much talkers hated him. The 



A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA 3 

informal habit of his mind, joined to an inveterate impedi- 
ment of speech, forbade him to be an orator ; and he seemed 
determined that no one else should play that part when he 
was present. He was petit and ordinary in his person and 
appearance. I have seen him sometimes in what is called s 
good company, but where he has been a stranger, sit silent, 
and be suspected for an odd fellow ; till some unlucky occa- 
sion provoking it, he would stutter out some senseless pun 
(not altogether senseless perhaps, if rightly taken), which has 
stamped his character for the evening. It was hit or miss lo 
with him ; but nine times out of ten, he contrived by this 
device to send away a whole company his enemies. His 
conceptions rose kindlier than his utterance, and his happi- 
est impromptus had the appearance of effort. He has been 
accused of trying to be witty, when in truth he was but strug- 15 
gling to give his poor thoughts articulation. He chose his 
companions for some individuahty of character which they 
manifested. — Hence, not many persons of science, and few 
professed literati, were of his councils. They were, for the 
most part, persons of an uncertain fortune ; and, as to such 20 
people commonly nothing is more obnoxious than a gentle- 
man of settled (though moderate) income, he passed with most 
of them for a great miser. To my knowledge this was a mis- 
take. His iiitimados, to confess a truth, were in the world's 
eye a ragged regiment. He found them floating on the sur- 25 
face of society ; and the colour, or something else, in the weed 
pleased him. The burrs stuck to him — but they were good 
and loving burrs for all that. He never greatly cared for the 
society of what are called good people. If any of these were 
scandalized (and offences were sure to arise), he could not 'p 
help it. When he has been remonstrated with for not making 
more concessions to the feelings of good people, he would 
retort by asking, what one point did these good people 
ever concede to him? He was temperate in his meals and 



4 A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA 

diversions, but always kept a little on this side of abstemious- 
ness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he might be thought 
a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as a solvent of 
speech. Marry — as the friendly vapour ascended, how his 

5 prattle would curl up sometimes with it ! the ligaments, which 
tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded 
a statist ! 

I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice 
that my old friend is departed. His jests were beginning to 

10 grow obsolete, and his stories to be found out. He felt the 
approaches of age ; and while he pretended to cling to life, 
you saw how slender were the ties left to bind him. Dis- 
coursing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed him- 
self with a pettishness, which I thought unworthy of him. 

15 In our walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at 
Shacklewell, some children belonging to a school of industry 
had met us, and bowed and curtseyed, as he thought, in an 
especial manner to ///;;?. "They take me for a visiting gov- 
ernor," he muttered earnestly. He had a horror, which he 

20 carried to a foible, of looking like anything important and 
parochial. He thought that he approached nearer to that 
stamp daily. He had a general aversion from being treated 
like a grave or respectable character, and kept a wary eye 
upon the advances of age that should so entitle him. He 

25 herded always, while it was possible, with people younger than 
himself. He did not conform to the march of time, but was 
dragged along in the procession. His manners lagged behind 
his years. He was too much of the boy-man. The toga viri- 
lis never sate gracefully on his shoulders. The impressions of 

30 infancy had burnt into him, and he resented the impertinence 
of manhood. These were weaknesses ; but such as they were, 
they are a key to explicate some of his writings. 

[He left httle property behind him. Of course, the little 
that is left (chiefly in India bonds) devolves upon his cousin 



A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA 5 

Bridget. A few critical dissertations were found in his escri- 
toire^ which have been handed over to the editor of this 
magazine, in which it is to be hoped they will shortly appear, 
retaining his accustomed signature. 

He has himself not obscurely hinted that his employment 5 
lay in a public office. The gentlemen in the export depart- 
ment of the East India House will forgive me if I acknowledge 
the readiness with which they assisted me in the retrieval of 
his few manuscripts. They pointed out in a most obliging 
manner the desk at which he had been planted for forty years ; 10 
showed me ponderous tomes of figures, in his own remarkably 
neat hand, which, more properly than his few printed tracts, 
might be called his "Works." They seemed affectionate to 
his memory, and universally commended his expertness in 
book-keeping. It seems he was the inventor of some ledger 15 
which should combine the precision and certainty of the Italian 
double entry (I think they called it) with the brevity and 
facihty of some newer German system j but I am not able to 
appreciate the worth of the discovery. I have often heard 
him express a warm regard for his associates in office, and 20 
how fortunate he considered himself in having his lot thrown 
in amongst them. "There is more sense, more discourse, 
more shrewdness, and even talent, among these clerks," he 
would say, " than in twice the number of authors by profes- 
sion that I have conversed with." He would brighten up 25 
sometimes upon the "old days of the India House," when 
he consorted with Woodroffe and Wissett, and Peter Corbet 
(a descendant and worthy representative, bating the point of 
sanctity, of old facetious Bishop Corbet) ; and Hoole, who 
translated Tasso ; and Bartlemy Brown, whose father (God 30 
assoil him therefor !) modernized Walton ; and sly, warm- 
hearted old Jack Cole (King Cole they called him in those 
days) and Campe and Fombelle, and a world of choice spirits, 
more than I can remember to name, who associated in those 



6 THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

days with Jack Burrell (the hoii-vivant of the South-Sea 
House) ; and little Eyton (said to be • a fac-simile of Pope, 
— he was a miniature of a gentleman), that was cashier 
under him ; and Dan Voight of the Custom-house, that left 
the famous library. 

Well, Elia is gone, — for aught I know, to be re-united with 
them, — and these poor traces of his pen are all we have to 
show for it. How little survives of the wordiest authors ! Of 
all they said or did in their lifetime, a few glittering words 
only ! His Essays found some favourers, as they appeared 
separately ; they shuffled their way in the crowd well enough 
singly ; how they will read^ now they are brought together, is 
a question for the publishers, who have thus ventured to draw 
out into one piece his "weaved-up follies."] 



II. THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

15 Reader, in thy passage from the Bank — where thou hast 
been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art 
a lean annuitant like myself) — to the Flower Pot, to secure 
a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy subur- 
ban retreat northerly, — didst thou never observ^e a melan- 

20 choly-looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the left 
— where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate ? I dare- 
say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping 
wide, and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters, and 
pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out — a 

25 desolation something like Balclutha's.^ 

This was once a house of trade, — a centre of busy interests. 
The throng of merchants was here — the quick pulse of gain 

1 I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were desolate. — 
OssiAN. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 7 

and here some forms of business are still kept up, though 

the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be seen stately 
porticoes; imposing staircases; oflices roomy as the state 
apartments in palaces — deserted, or thinly peopled with a 
few straggling clerks ; the still more sacred interiors of court 5 
and committee-rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, door- 
keepers — directors seated in form on solemn days (to pro- 
claim a dead dividend), at long worm-eaten tables, that have 
been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, supporting 
massy silver inkstands long since dry ; — the oaken wainscots 10 
hung with pictures of deceased governors and sub-governors, 
of Queen Anne, and the two first monarchs of the Brunswick 
dynasty ; — huge charts, which subsequent discoveries have 
antiquated ; — dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, — and 
soundings of the Bay of Panama !— The long passages hung 15 
with buckets, appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance 
might defy any, short of the last conflagration : — with vast 
ranges of cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight 
once lay, an "unsunned heap," for Mammon to have solaced 
his sohtary heart withal, — long since dissipated, or scattered 20 
into air at the blast of the breaking of that famous Bubble. — 
Such is the South-Sea House. At least, such it was forty 
years ago, when I knew it, — a magnificent relic ! What altera- 
tions may have been made in it since, I have had no opportuni- 
ties of verifying. Time, I take for granted, has not freshened it. 25 
No wind has resuscitated the face of the sleeping waters. 
A thicker crust by this time stagnates upon it. The moths, 
that were then battening upon its obsolete ledgers and day- 
books, have rested from their depredations, but other light 
generations have succeeded, making fine fretwork among their 30 
single and double entries. Layers of dust have accumulated 
(a superfoetation of dirt !) upon the old layers, that seldom 
used to be disturbed, save by some curious finger, now and 
then, inquisitive to explore the mode of book-keeping in 



8 THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed curiosity, seek- 
ing to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous hoax, 
whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon 
with the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hope- 

5 less ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face of 
modern conspiracy contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's 
superhuman plot. 

Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence and destitu- 
tion are upon thy walls, proud house, for a memorial ! 

lo Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living 
commerce, — amid the fret and fever of speculation — with 
the Bank, and the 'Change, and the India House about thee, 
in the hey-day of present prosperity, with their important faces, 
as it were, insulting thee, their poor neighbour out of business 

15 — to the idle and merely contemplative, — to such as me, old 
house ! there is a charm in thy quiet : — a cessation — a cool- 
ness from business — an indolence almost cloistral — which is 
delightful 1 With what reverence have I paced thy great bare 
rooms and courts at eventide ! They spoke of the past : — 

20 the shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, 
would flit by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and account- 
ants puzzle me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great 
dead tomes, which scarce three degenerate clerks of the present 
day could lift from their enshrining shelves — with their old 

25 fantastic flourishes, and decorative rubric interfacings — their 
sums in triple columniations, set down with formal superfluity 
of cyphers — with pious sentences at the beginning, without 
which our religious ancestors never ventured to open a book 
of business, or bill of lading — the costly vellum covers of 

30 some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some 
better library, — are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. 
I can look upon these defunct dragons with complacency. 
Thy heavy odd-shaped ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors 
had everything on a larger scale than we have hearts for) are 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 9 

as good as anything from Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes 
of our days have gone retrograde. 

The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea House 

— I speak of forty years back — had an air very different from 
those in the pubHc offices that I have had to do with since. 5 
They partook of the genius of the place ! 

They were mostly (for the estabhshment did not admit 
of superfluous salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had 
not much to do) persons of a curious and speculative turn 
of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason mentioned before. 10 
Humourists, for they were of all descriptions ; and, not hav- 
ing been brought together in early hfe (which has a tendency 
to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to each other), 
but, for the most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle 
age, they necessarily carried into it their separate habits and 15 
oddities, unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a common 
stock. Hence they formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. 
A lay-monastery. Domestic retainers in a great house, kept 
more for show than use. Yet pleasant fellows, full of chat 

— and not a few among them had arrived at considerable 20 
proficiency on the German flute. 

The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro-Briton. 
He had something of the choleric complexion of his country- 
men stamped on his visage, but was a worthy sensible man at 
bottom. He wore his hair, to the last, powdered and frizzed 25 
out, in the fashion which I remember to have seen in carica- 
tures of what were termed, in my young days, Maccaronies. 
He was the last of that race of beaux. Melancholy as a gib- 
cat over his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him making 
up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as if he 3c 
feared every one about him was a defaulter ; in his hypo- 
chondry ready to imagine himself one ; haunted, at least, with 
the idea of the possibiHty of his becoming one : his tristful 
visage clearing up a little over his roast neck of veal at 



10 THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

Anderton's at two (where his picture still hangs, taken a little 
before his death by desire of the master of the coffee-house, 
which he had frequented for the last five-and-twenty years), 
but not attaining the meridian of its animation till evening 
5 brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The simultaneous 
sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of 
the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth in 
the families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his 
presence. Then was \{\^ forte ^ his glorified hour ! How would 

10 he chirp, and expand over a muffin ! How would he dilate 
into secret history ! His countryman Pennant himself, in par- 
ticular, could not be more eloquent than he in relation to old 
and new London — the site of old theatres, churches, streets 
gone to decay — where Rosamond's Pond stood — the Mul- 

15 berry Gardens — and the Conduit in Cheap — with many a 
pleasant anecdote, derived from paternal tradition, of those 
grotesque figures which Hogarth has immortalized in his pic- 
ture oi Noo7i, — the worthy descendants of those heroic con- 
fessors, who, flying to this country, from the wrath of Louis 

20 the Fourteenth and his dragoons, kept alive the flame of pure 
religion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog Lane, and the 
vicinity of the Seven Dials ! 

Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air 
and stoop of a nobleman. You would have taken him for one, 

25 had you met him in one of the passages leading to Westmin- 
ster Hall. By stoop I mean that gentle bending of the body 
forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed to be the 
effect of an habitual condescending attention to the applica- 
tions of their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you 

30 felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference 
over, you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignifi- 
cance of the pretensions which had just awed you. His intel- 
lect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or 
a proverb. His mind was in its original state of white paper. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE II 

A sucking babe might have posed him. What was it then? 
Was he rich ? Alas, no ! Thomas Tame was very poor. 
Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear 
all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre per- 
son, which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pamper- 5 
ing ; but in its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, 
by some labyrinth of relationship, which I never thoroughly 
understood, — much less can explain with any heraldic cer- 
tainty at this time of day, — to the illustrious, but unfortunate 
house of Derwentwater. This was the secret of Thomas's 10 
stoop. This was the thought — the sentiment — the bright 
solitary star of your lives, — ye mild and happy pair, — which 
cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of 
your station ! This was to you instead of riches, instead of 
rank, instead of glittering attainments : and it was worth them 15 
all together. You insulted none with it ; but, while you wore 
it as a piece of defensive armour only, no insult Hkewise could 
reach you through it. Decus et solamen. 

Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. 
He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared 20 
one fig about the matter. He " thought an accountant the 
greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest 
accountant in it." . Yet John was not without his hobby. 
The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, with 
other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream 25 
and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms 
in Threadneedle Street, which, without anything very sub- 
stantial appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's 
notions of himself that lived in them — (I know not who is 
the occupier of them now ^) — resounded fortnightly to the 30 

1 [I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them is a 
Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of some choice 
pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, which I mean to 
do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the same time to refresh 



12 THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

notes of a concert of " sweet breasts," as our ancestors would 
have called them, culled from club-rooms and orchestras — 
chorus singers — first and second violoncellos — double basses 
'■ — and clarionets — who ate his cold mutton, and drank his 
5 punch, and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among 
them. But at the desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. 
Thence all ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. 
You could not speak of anything romantic without rebuke. 
Politics were excluded. A newspaper was thought too refined 

lo and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in writing 
off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in 
the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the bal- 
ance of last year in the sum of ^^25, is. 6d.) occupied his 
days and nights for a month previous. Not that Tipp was 

15 blind to the deadness oi things (as they call them in the city) 
in his beloved house, or did not sigh for a return of the 
old stirring days when South-Sea hopes w^ere young — (he 
was indeed equal to the wielding of any the most intricate 
accounts of the most flourishing company in these or those 

20 days) : — but to a genuine accountant the difference of pro- 
ceeds is as nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to his 
heart as the thousands which stand before it. He is the true 
actor, who, whether his part be a prince or a peasant, must 
act it with Hke intensity. With Tipp form was everything. 

25 His life was formal. His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. 
His pen was not less erring than his heart. He made the best 
executor in the world : he was plagued with incessant execu- 
torships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his 
vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at 

30 the little orphans, whose rights he would guard with a tenacity 

my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. Lamb has the character 
of a right courteous and communicative collector.] This note was 
omitted in the collected Essays of Elia (1823). The Mr. Lamb here 
mentioned was the author's brother John. — Ed. 



THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 1 3 

like the grasp of the dying hand that commended their inter- 
ests to his protection. With all this there was about him a 
sort of timidity — (his few enemies used to give it a worse 
name) — a something which, in reverence to the dead, we 
will place, if you please, a Httle on this side of the heroic. 5 
Nature certainly had been pleased to endow John Tipp with 
a sufficient measure of the principle of self-preservation. 
There is a cowardice which we do not despise, because it 
has nothing base or treacherous in its elements; it betrays 
itself, not you : it is mere temperament ; the absence of the 10 
romantic and the enterprising ; it sees a Hon in the way, and 
will not, with Fortinbras, "greatly find quarrel in a straw," 
when some supposed honour is at stake. Tipp never mounted 
the box of a stage-coach in his life ; or leaned against the 
rails of a balcony ; or walked upon the ridge of a parapet ; 1 5 
or looked down a precipice ; or let off a gun ; or went upon 
a water-party ; or would willingly let you go if he could have 
helped it : neither was it recorded of him, that for lucre, or 
for intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle. 

Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, in 20 
whom common quahties become uncommon? Can I forget 
thee, Henry Man, the wit, the pohshed man of letters, the 
author^ of the South-Sea House? who never enteredst thy 
office in a morning, or quittedst it in mid-day — (what didst 
thou in an office?) — without some quirk that left a sting! 25 
Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive but in two 
forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to rescue 
from a stall in Barbican, not three days ago, and found thee 
terse, fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a little gone 
by in these fastidious days — thy topics are staled by the 30 
"new-born gauds" of the time: — but great thou used to 
be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, upon Chatham and 
Shelburne, and Rockingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, and 
Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing from Great 



14 THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE • 

Britain her rebellious colonies — and Keppel, and Wilkes, and 
Sawbridge, and Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond, 

— and such small politics. 

A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous, 
5 was fine rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended — 
not in a right line, reader (for his Hneal pretensions, like his 
personal, favoured a little of the sinister bend) — from the 
Plumers of Hertfordshire. So tradition gave him out; and 
certain family features not a little sanctioned the opinion. 

lo Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed author) had been 
a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and had seen the 
world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old Whig still 
living, who has represented the county in so many successive 
parliaments, and has a fine old mansion near Ware. Walter 

15 flourished in George the Second's days, and was the same who 
was summoned before the House of Commons about a business 
of franks, with the old Duchess of Marlborough. You may read 
of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave came off cleverly in that 
business. It is certain our Plumer did nothing to discounte- 

20 nance the rumour. He rather seemed pleased whenever it was, 
with all gentleness, insinuated. But, besides his family preten- 
sions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, and sang gloriously. 

Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child-like, 
pastoral M ; a flute's breathing less divinely whispering 

25 than thy Arcadian melodies, when in tones worthy of Arden, 
thou didst chant that song sung by Amiens to the banished 
Duke, which proclaims the winter wind more lenient than for 

a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly M , the 

unapproachable churchwarden of Bishopsgate. He knew not 

30 what he did, when he begat thee, like spring, gentle offspring 
of blustering winter : — only unfortunate in thy ending, which 

should have been mild, conciliatory, swan-like. 

Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but 
they must be mine in private : — already I have fooled the 



OXFORD IN THE VACATION I 5 

reader to the top of his bent ; — else could I omit that strange 
creature Woollett, who existed in trying the question, and 
bought litigations ? — and still stranger, inimitable solemn Hep- 
worth, from whose gravity Newton might have deduced the 
law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a pen — 
with what deliberation would he wet a wafer ! 

But it is time to close — night's wheels are rattling fast over 
me — it is proper to have done with this solemn mockery. 

Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this while 
— peradventure the very names, which I have summoned up 
before thee, are fantastic, insubstantial — like Henry Pimpernel, 
and old John Naps of Greece : ■ 

Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a 
being. Their importance is from the past; 



.. III. OXFORD IN THE VACATION 

Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article, as 15 
the wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while 
it reads, seems as though it read not), never fails to consult 
the quis scidpsit in the corner, before he pronounces some rare 

piece to be a Vivares, or a Woollett methinks I hear you 

exclaim, reader, Who is Elia ? 20 

Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half- 
forgotten humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house 
of business, long since gone to decay, doubtless you have 
already set me down in your mind as one of the self-same 
college — a votary of the desk — a notched and cropt scrivener 25 
— one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick people are 
said to do, through a quill. 

Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that it is 
my humour, my fancy — in the forepart of the day, when the 
mind of your man of letters requires some relaxation — (and 3° 



l6 OXFORD IN THE VACATION 

none better than such as at first sight seems most abhorrent 
from his beloved studies) — to while away some good hours of 
my time in the contemplation of indigos, cottons, raw silks, 
piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first place . . . and 

5 then it sends you home with such increased appetite to your 
books . . . not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste 
wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and 
naturally, the impression of sonnets, epigrams, essays — so that 
the very parings of a counting-house are, in some sort, the 

10 settings up of an author. The enfranchised quill, that has 
plodded all the morning among the cart-rucks of figures and 
cyphers, frisks and curvets so at its ease over the flowery 
carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation. It feels its promo- 
tion. ... So that you see, upon the whole, the literary dignity of 

1 5 jE/ia is very httle, if at all, compromised in the condescension. 

Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities 

incidental to the life of a pubUc office, I would be thought 

blind to certain flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to 

pick in this Joseph's vest. And here I must have leave, in the 

2o fulness of my soul, to regret the abolition, and doing-away with 
altogether, of those consolatory interstices, and sprinklings of 
freedom, through the four seasons, — the red-letter days, now 
become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days. There 
was Paul, and Stephen, and Barnabas — 

2r Andrew and John, men famous in old times ; 

— we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as I 
was at school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by the 
same token, in the old Basket Prayer-book. There hung Peter 
in his uneasy posture — holy Bartlemy in the troublesome act 
30 of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti. — I hon- 
oured them all, and could almost have wept the defalcation of 
Iscariot — so much did we love to keep holy memories sacred : 
— only methought I a httle grudged at the coaUtion of the 



OXFORD IN THE VACATION 1 7 

better Jude with Simon — clubbing (as it were) their sanctities 
together, to make up one poor gaudy-day between them — as 
an economy unworthy of the dispensation. 

These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life 
— "far off their coming shone." — I was as good as an alma- 5 
nac in those days. I could have told you such a saint's-day 
falls out next week, or the week after. Peradventure the 
Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, would, once in six 
years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better than one of 
the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom 10 
of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation 
of these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. Only in a 
custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses the 
Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded — but I am wad- 
ing out of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits 15 
of civil and ecclesiastical authority — I am plain Elia — no 
Selden, nor Archbishop Usher — though at present in the 
thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the 
shadow of the mighty Bodley. 

I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such 20 
a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of 
the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, 
to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the 
Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, 
falls in so pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmo- 25 
lested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. 
I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. 
I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. 
In moods of humiHty I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When 
the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In 30 
graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not 
think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have 
seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, 
drop a bow or curtsey, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for 



l8 OXFORD IN THE VACATION 

something of the sort. I go about in black, which- favours the 
notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can be 
content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor. 

The walks at these times are so much one's own, — the tall 
5 trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen 1 The halls deserted, 
and with open doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and 
pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress 
(that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile 
upon their over-looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their 

10 own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and 
sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality : the immense caves 
of kitchens, kitchen fireplaces, cordial recesses ; ovens whose 
first pies were baked four centuries ago ; and spits which have 
cooked for Chaucer ! Not the meanest minister among the 

15 dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the 
Cook goes forth a Manciple. 

Antiquity ! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being 
nothing, art everything ! When thou wert, thou wert not anti- 
quity — then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, 

20 as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration ; thou 
thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern ! What mystery 
lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses^ are we, that 
cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for 
ever revert ! The mighty future is as nothing, being every- 

25 thing ! the past is everything, being nothing ! 

What were thy dark ages .? Surely the sun rose as brightly then 
as now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it 
that we can never hear mention of them without an accompany- 
ing feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face 

30 of things, and that our ancestors wandered to and fro groping ! 

Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride 

and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, 

thy shelves 

1 Januses of one face. — Sir Thomas Browne. 



OXFORD IN THE VACATION 1 9 

What a place to be in is an old library ! It seems as 
though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed 
their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in 
some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, 
to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon 5 
dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid 
their foliage ; and the odour of their old moth-scented cover- 
ings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples 
which grew amid the happy orchard. 

Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS.-^ 10 
Those varicB Iectio?ies, so tempting to the more erudite palates, 
do but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean 
raker. The credit of the three witnesses might have slept unim- 
peached for me. I leave these curiosities to Porson, and to 
G. D. — whom, by the way,' I found busy as a moth over some 15 
rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, 
in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is grown almost into 
a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the 
old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign 
him his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. 20 

1 [There is something to me repugnant at any time in written hand. 
The text never seems determinate. Print settles it, I had thought 
of the Lycidas as of a full-grown beauty — as springing up with all its 
parts absolute — till, in an evil hour, I was shown the original copy 
of it, together with the other minor poems of its author, in the library 
of Trinity, kept like some treasure, to be proud of. I wish they had 
thrown them in the Cam, or sent them after the latter cantos of Spen- 
ser, into the Irish Channel. How it staggered me to see the fine 
things in their ore ! interlined, corrected ! as if their words were mortal, 
alterable, displaceable at pleasure ! as if they might have been other- 
wise, just as good ! as if inspiration were made up of parts, and these 
fluctuating, successive, indifferent ! I will never go into the workshop 
of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his picture till it is fairly 
off the easel ; no, not if Raphael were to be alive again, and painting 
another Galatea.] This note appeared in the London but was omitted 
by Lamb in the edition of 1823. — Ed. 



20 OXFORD IN THE VACATION 

D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No 
inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, 
is consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's Inn — 
where, like a dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his 
5 unconscious abode, amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys' 
clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom 
he sits, "in calm and sinless peace." The fangs of the law 
pierce him not — the winds of litigation blow over his humble 
chambers — the hard sheriff's officer moves his hat as he passes 

10 — legal or illegal discourtesy touches him — none thinks of 
offering violence or injustice to him^ — you would as soon 
" strike an abstract idea." 

D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of labori- 
ous years, in an investigation into all curious matter connected 

15 with the two Universities ; and has lately lit upon a MS. collec- 
tion of charters, relative to C , by which he hopes to settle 

some disputed points — particularly that long controversy 
between them as to priority of foundation. The ardour with 
which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has 

20 not met with all the encouragement it deserved, either here, 

or at C . Your caputs, and heads of Colleges, care less 

than anybody else about these questions. — Contented to suck 
the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, without inquiring 
into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such 

1 [Violence or injustice certainly none, Mr. Elia. But you will 
acknowledge that the charming unsuspectingness of our friend haa 
sometimes laid him open to attacks, which, though savouring (we 
hope) more of waggery than of malice — such is our unfeigned respect 
for G. D. — might, we think, much better have been omitted. Such 

was that silly joke of L , who, at the time the question of the 

Scotch novels was first agitated, gravely assured our friend — who as 
gravely went about repeating it in all companies — that Lord Castle- 
reagh had acknowledged himself to be the author of Waverley! — 
Note, not by Elia.] This note, appended to the original essay, was 
a hoax, L being Lamb himself. — Ed. 



OXFORD IN THE VACATION 21 

curiosities to be impertinent — unreverend. They have their 
good glebe lands m maim, and care not much to rake into the 
title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for 
D. is not a man to complain. 

D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. 5 
A priori it was not very probable that we should have met in 
Oriel. But D. would have done the same, had I accosted 
him on the sudden in his own walks in Clifford's Inn, or in 
the Temple. In addition to a provoking shortsightedness (the 
effect of late studies and watchings at the midnight oil), D. is 10 
the most absent of men. He made a call the other morning 
at our friend M.^s in Bedford Square; and finding nobody at 
home, was ushered into the hall, where asking for pen and ink, 
with great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the 
book — which ordinarily lies about in such places, to record 15 
the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor — and takes 
his leave with many ceremonies, and professions of regret. 
Some two or three hours after, his walking destinies returned 
him into the same neighbourhood again, and again the quiet 
image of the fireside circle at M.'s — Mrs. M. presiding at 20 
it like a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S. at her side — striking 
irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call (forgetting that 
they were " certainly not to return from the country before 
that day week ") and disappointed a second time, inquires for 
pen and paper as before : again the book is brought, and in 25 
the line just above that in which he is about to print his second 
name (his re-script) — his first name (scarce dry) looks out 
upon him hke another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly 
encounter his own duplicate ! The effect may be conceived. 
D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses in 30 
future. I hope he will not keep them too rigorously. 

For with G. D. — to be absent from the body, is sometimes 
(not to speak it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At 
the very time when, personally encountering thee, he passes 



22 OXFORD IN THE VACATION 

on with no recognition — or, being stopped, starts like a thing 
surprised — at that moment, reader, he is on Mount Tabor — 
or Parnassus — or co-sphered with Plato — or, with Harrington, 
framing " immortal commonwealths " — devising some plan of 
5 amelioration to thy country, or thy species — peradventure 
meditating some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done 
to thee thyself^ the returning consciousness of which made him 
to start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence. 

[D. commenced life after a course of hard study in the 

10 house of " pure Emanuel," as usher to a knavish fanatic school- 
master at , at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with 

board and lodging. Of this poor stipend he never received 
above half in all the laborious years he served this man. He 
tells a pleasant anecdote, that when poverty, staring out at 

15 his ragged knees, has sometimes compelled him, against the 

modesty of his nature, to hint at arrears, Dr. would take 

no immediate notice, but after supper, when the school was 
called together to even-song, he would never fail to introduce 
some instructive homily against riches, and the corruption of 

20 the heart occasioned through the desire of them — ending 
with '' Lord, keep thy servants, above all things, from the 
heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, let us 
therewithal be content. Give me Agur's wish" — and the 
like — which, to the Httle auditory, sounded like a doctrine 

25 full of Christian prudence and simplicity, but to poor D. was 
a receipt in full for that quarter's demand at least. 

And D. has been under- working for himself ever since ; — 
drudging at low rates for unappreciating booksellers, — wasting 
his fine erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in 

30 those unostentatious but solid services to learning which com- 
monly fall to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the 
heart to sell themselves to the best advantage. He has 
published poems, which do not sell, because their character is 
unobtrusive, like his own, and because he has been too much 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 23 

absorbed in ancient literature to know what the popular mark 
in poetry is, even if he could have hit it. And, therefore, 
his verses are properly, what he .terms them, crotchets ; volun- 
taries ; odes to liberty and spring; effusions; Httle tributes 
and offerings, left behind him upon tables and window-seats 5 
at parting from friends' houses; and from all the inns of 
hospitality, where he has been courteously (or but tolerably) 
received in his pilgrimage. If his muse of kindness halt a 
Httle behind the strong lines in fashion in this excitement- 
loving age, his prose is the best of the sort in the world, and 10 
exhibits a faithful transcript of his own healthy, natural mind, 
and cheerful, innocent tone of conversation.] 

D. is delightful anywhere, but he is at the best in such 
places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of 
his element at Buxton, at Scarborough, or Harrogate. The 15 
Cam and the Isis are to him " better than all the waters of 
Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and good, as 
one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains ; and when 
he goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, 
you think you have with you the Interpreter of the House 20 
Beautiful. 



IV. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY 
YEARS AGO 

In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I 
find a magnificent eulogy on my old school,^ such as it was, 
or now appears to him to have been between the years 1782 
and 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my own standing 25 
at Christ's was nearly corresponding with his ; and, with all 
gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think 
he has contrived to bring together whatever can be said in 
^ " Recollections of Christ's Hospital." 



24 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument 
most ingeniously. 

I remember L. at school ; and can well recollect that he 
had some peculiar advantages, which I and others of his school- 
5 fellows had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at 
hand ; and he had the privilege of going to see them, almost 
as often as he wished, through some invidious distinction, which 
was denied to us. The present worthy sub-treasurer to the 
Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He had his 

lo tea and hot rolls in the morning, while we were battening upon 
our quarter of a penny loaf — our crug — moistened with atten- 
uated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched 
leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, 
blue and tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and 

15 choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extraordi- 
nary bread and butter," from the hot-loaf of the Temple. 
The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant — 
(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week) — was 
endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a 

20 smack of ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the 
fragrant cinnamon. In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, or 
quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong as caro equifta), 
with detestable marigolds floating in the pail to poison the 
broth — our scanty mutton crags on Fridays — and rather 

25 more savoury, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rotten- 
roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which excited 
our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal 
proportion) — he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more 
tempting griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in 

30 the paternal kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily 
by his maid or aunt ! I remember the good old relative (in 
whom love forbade pride) squatting down upon some odd stone 
in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the viands (of higher 
regale than those cates which the ravens ministered to the 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 25 

Tishbite) ; and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. 
There was love for the bringer ; shame for the thing brought, 
and the manner of its bringing; sympathy for those who 
were too many to share in it; and, at top of all, hunger 
(eldest, strongest of the passions !) predominant, breaking 5 
down the stony fences of shame, and awkwardnesS^, and a 
troubling over-consciousness. 

I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those who 
should care for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances 
of theirs, which they could reckon upon being kind to me in 10 
the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the 
grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew 
tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them to recur 
too often, though I thought them few enough ; and, one after 
another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six 15 
hundred playmates. 

O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early home- 
stead ! The yearnings which I used to have towards it in those 
unfledged years ! How, in my dreams, would my native town 
(far in the west) come back, with its church, and trees, and 20 
faces ! How I would wake weeping, and in the anguish of 
my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire ! 

To this late hour of my Hfe, I trace impressions left by the 
recollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days 
of summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from 25 
the haunting memory of those whole-day-leaves , when, by some 
strange arrangement, we were turned out, for the livelong day, 
upon our own hands, whether we had friends to go to, or none. 
I remember those bathing-excursions to the New-River, which 
L. recalls with such rehsh, better, I think, than he can — for 30 
he was a home-seeking lad, and did not much care for such 
water-pastimes : — How merrily we would sally forth into the 
fields ; and strip under the first warmth of the sun ; and wanton 
like young dace in the streams; getting us appetites for noon, 



26 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

which those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning 
crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying — 
while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes, were at feed 
about us, and we had nothing to satisfy our cravings — the 
5 very beauty of the day, and the exercise of the pastime, and 
the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon them ! — How 
faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards night-fall, 
to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half- reluctant, that the 
hours of our uneasy liberty had expired ! 

lo It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about 
the streets objectless — shivering at cold windows of print- 
shops, to extract a little amusement ; or haply, as a last resort, 
in the hope of a little novelty, to pay a fifty-times repeated 
visit (where our individual faces should be as well known to 

15 the warden as those of his own charges) to the Lions in the 
Tower — to whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had a 
prescriptive title to admission. 

L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to 
the foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any 

20 complaint which he had to make was sure of being attended to. 
This was understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen 
to him against the severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the 
monitors. The oppressions of these young brutes are heart- 
sickening to call to recollection. I have been called out of 

25 my bed, and waked for the purpose, in the coldest winter 
nights — and this not once, but night after night — in my 
shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with eleven 
other sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when 
there has been any talking heard after we were gone to bed, 

30 to make the six last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest 
children of us slept, answerable for an offence they neither 
dared to commit, nor had the power to hinder. The same 
execrable tyranny drove the younger part of us from the fires, 
when our feet were perishing with snow ; and, under the cruelest 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 2/ 

penalties, forbade the indulgence of a drink of water, when we 
lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season, and 
the day's sports. 

There was one H , who, I learned, in after-days, was 

seen expiating some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I 5 
flatter myself in fancying that this might be the planter of 
that name, who suffered — at Nevis, I think, or St. Kits, — 
some few years since? My friend Tobin was the benevolent 
instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty Nero 
actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a red-hot 10 
iron ; and nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contribu- 
tions, to the one half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, 
which, incredible as it may seem, with the connivance of the 
nurse's daughter (a young flame of his) he had contrived to 
smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the ward^ as they 15 
called our dormitories. This game went on for better than 
a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must 
cry roast meat — happier than Caligula's minion, could he 
have kept his own counsel — but, foolisher, alas ! than any of 
his species in the fables — waxing fat, and kicking, in the ful- 20 
ness of bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his 
good fortune to the world below ; and, laying out his simple 
throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as (toppling down the 
walls of his own Jericho) set concealment any longer at defi- 
ance. The client was dismissed, with certain attentions, to 25 
Smithfield ; but I never understood that the patron underwent 
any censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of 
L.'s admired Perry. 

Under the same facile administration, can L. have forgotten 
the cool impunity with which the nurses used to carry away 30 
openly, in open platters, for their own tables, one out of two 
of every hot joint, which the careful matron had been seeing 
scrupulously weighed out for our dinners ? These things were 
daily practised in that magnificent apartment, which L. (grown 



28 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

connoisseur since, we presume) praises so highly for the grand 
paintings "by Verrio, and others," with which it is "hung round 
and adorned." But the sight of sleek well-fed blue-coat boys 
in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to 
5 him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our pro- 
visions carried away before our faces by harpies ; and ourselves 
reduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido) 

To feed our mind with idle portraiture. 

L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags, or the 
10 fat of fresh beef boiled ; and sets it down to some superstition. 
But these unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates 
(children are universally fat-haters), and in strong, coarse, 
boiled meats, unsalted, are detestable. K gag-eater in our time 
was equivalent to a ghoul, and held in equal detestation. 
15 suffered under the imputation : 

' Twas said, 



He ate strange flesh. 

He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the rem- 
nants left at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, 

20 you may credit me) — and, in an especial manner, these dis- 
reputable morsels, which he would convey away, and secretly 
stow in the settle that stood at his bed-side. None saw when 
he ate them. It was rumoured that he privately devoured 
them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of such 

25 midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported, that, 
on leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a 
large blue check handkerchief, full of something. This then 
must be the accursed thing. Conjecture next was at work to 
imagine how he could dispose of it. Some said he sold it to 

30 the beggars. This belief generally prevailed. He went about 
moping. None spake to him. No one would play with him. 
He was excommunicated ; put out of the pale of the school. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 29 

He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent 
every mode of that negative punishment, which is more grievous 
than many stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was 
observed by two of his school-fellows, who were determined to 
get at the secret, and had traced him one leave-day for that 5 
purpose, to enter a large worn-out building, such as there exist 
specimens of in Chancery Lane, which are let out to various 
scales of pauperism with open door, and a common staircase. 
After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth up four 
flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened lo 
by an aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was now ripened 
into certainty. The informers had secured their victim. They 
had him in their toils. Accusation was formally preferred, and 
retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the 
then steward, for this happened a little after my time, with 15 
that patient sagacity which tempered all his conduct, deter- 
mined to investigate the matter, before he proceeded to sen- 
tence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the 
receivers or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to 

be the parents of , an honest couple come to decay, — 20 

whom this seasonable supply had, in all probability, saved from 
mendicancy ; and that this young stork, at the expense of his 
own good name, had all this while been only feeding the old 
birds ! The governors on this occasion, much to their honour, 

voted a present rehef to the family of , and presented 25 

him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward read 
upon RASH JUDGMENT, on the occasion of publicly delivering 

the medal to , I believe, would not be lost upon his 

auditory. I had left school then, but I well remember . 

He was a tall, shambling youth, with a cast in his eye, 30 
not at all calculated to conciliate hostile prejudices. I have 
since seen him carrying a baker's basket. I think I heard 
he did not do quite so well by himself, as he had done by 
the old folks. 



30 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

I was a hypochondriac lad ; and a sight of a boy in fetters, 
upon the day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not 
exactly fitted to assuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was 
of tender years, barely turned of seven ; and had only read 
5 of such things in books, or seen them but in dreams. I was 
told he had run away. This was the punishment for the first 
oifence. As a novice I was soon after taken to see the dun- 
geons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, where a boy 
could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket — a mat- 

10 tress, I think, was afterwards substituted — with a peep of 
light, let in askance, from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough 
to read by. Here the poor boy was locked in by himself all 
day, without sight of any but the porter who brought him his 
bread and water — who 77iight not speak to him; or of the 

15 beadle, who came twice a week to call him out to receive his 
periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome, because it 
separated him for a brief interval from solitude : — and here 
he was shut up by himself of nights^ out of the reach of any 
sound, to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and super- 

20 stition incident to his time of life, might subject him to.^ 
This was the penalty for the second offence. Wouldst thou 
like, reader, to see what became of him in the next degree ? 

The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and 
whose expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was 

25 brought forth, as at some solemn auto dafe, arrayed in uncouth 
and most appalling attire — all trace of his late "watchet 
weeds " carefully effaced, he was exposed in a jacket, resem- 
bling those which London lamplighters formerly delighted in, 

1 One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accordingly, 
at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this part of the 
sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits was dispensed with. 
This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout of Howard's brain, 
for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul), methinks, I could 
willingly spit upon his statue. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 3 1 

with a cap of the same. The effect of this divestiture was 
such as the ingenious devisers of it could have anticipated. 
With his pale and frighted features, it was as if sorne of those 
disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In this dis- 
guisement he was brought into the hall {L' s favourite state- 5 
room) where awaited him the whole number of his school- 
fellows, whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforth to 
share no more j the awful presence of the steward, to be seen 
for the last time ; of the executioner beadle, clad in his state 
robe for the occasion ; and of two faces more, of direr import, 10 
because never but in these extremities visible. These were 
governors ; two of whom, by choice, or charter, were always 
accustomed to officiate at these Ulti??ia Supplicia ; not to miti- 
gate (so at least we understood it), but to enforce the utter- 
most stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter Aubert, I 15 
remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle 
turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare 
him for the mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman 
fashion, long and stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal 
quite round the hall. We were generally too faint with attend- 20 
ing to the previous disgusting circumstances to make accurate 
report with our eyes of the degree of corporal suffering inflicted. 
Report, of course, gave out the back knotty and livid. After 
scourging, he was made over, in his San Benito^ to his friends, 
if he had any (but commonly such poor runagates were friend- 25 
less), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance the effect of 
the scene, had his station allotted to him on the outside of 
the hall gate. 

These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to 
spoil the general mirth of the community. We had plenty 30 
of exercise and recreation after school hours ; and, for my- 
self, I must confess, that I was never happier, than m them. 
The Upper and the Lower Grammar Schools were held in the 
and an imaginary line only divided their bounds. 



32 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

Their character was as different as that of the inhabitants on 
the two sides of the Pyrenees. The Rev. James Boyer was 
the Upper Master ; but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over 
that portion of the apartment of which I had the good fortune 

5 to be a member. We Hved a hfe as careless as birds. We 
talked and did just what we pleased, and nobody molested us. 
We carried an accidence, or a grammar, for form ; but, for any 
trouble it gave us, we might take two years in getting through 
the verbs deponent, and another two in forgetting all that we 

lo had learned about them. There was now and then the for- 
mality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a brush 
across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole 
remonstrance. Field never used the rod ; and in truth he 
wielded the cane with no great good-will — holding it " like a 

15 dancer." It looked in his hands rather like an emblem, than an 
instrument of authority ; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed 
of. He was a good, easy man, that did not care to ruffle his 
own peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the 
value of juvenile time. He came among us, now and then, but 

20 often stayed away whole days from us; and when he came, 
it made no difference to us — he had his private room to retire 
to, the short time he stayed, to be out of the sound of our noise. 
Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, 
without being beholden to " insolent Greece or haughty Rome," 

25 that passed current among us — Peter Wilkins — the Adven- 
tures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle — the Fortunate Blue 
Coat Boy — and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for mechanic 
or scientific operations ; making little sun-dials of paper ; or 
weaving those ingenious parentheses, called cat-cradles ; or mak- 

30 ing dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe ; or studying the 
art miUtary over that laudable game " French and English," 
and a hundred other such devices to pass away the time — 
mixing the useful with the agreeable — as would have made the 
souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to have seen us. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 33 

Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who 
affect to mix in equal proportion the gentleman, the scholar, 
and the Christian; but, I know not how, the first ingredient 
is generally found to be the predominating dose in the com- 
position. He was engaged in gay parties, or with his courtly 5 
bow at some episcopal levee, when he should have been attend- 
ing upon us. He had for many years the classical charge of 
a hundred children, during the four or five first years of their ' 
education ; and his very highest form seldom proceeded further 
than two or three of the introductory fables of Phaedrus. How 10 
things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, 
who was the proper person to have remedied these abuses, 
always affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a prov- 
ince not strictly his own. I have not been without my suspi- 
cions, that he was not altogether displeased at the contrast we 15 
presented to his end of the school. We were a sort of Helots 
to his young Spartans. He would sometimes, with ironic defer- 
ence, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then, with 
sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, " how neat and 
fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering 20 
their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as 
that enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our 
ease in our httle Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his 
discipline, and the prospect did but the more reconcile us to 
our lot. His thunders rolled innocuous for us ; his storms came 25 
near, but never touched us ; contrary to Gideon's miracle, while 
all around were drenched, our fleece was dry.^ His boys turned 
out the better scholars ; we, I suspect, have the advantage in 
temper. His pupils cannot speak of him without something 
of terror allaying their gratitude ; the remembrance of Field 30 
comes back with all the soothing images of indolence, and 
summer slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, 
and Elysian exemptions, and life itself a " playing holiday." 
1 Cowley, 



34 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, 
we were near enough (as I have said) to understand a Httle of 
his system. We occasionally heard sounds of the Ululantes, 
and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His 

5 English style was cramped to barbarism. His Easter anthems 
(for his duty obliged him to those periodical flights) were 
grating as scrannel pipes.^ He would laugh, ay, and heartily, 
but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble about Rex — or at 
the tristis severitas in vultu, or inspicere in patinas, of Terence 

lo — thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have 
had vis enough to move a Roman muscle. He had two wigs, 
both pedantic, but of different omen. The one serene, smil- 
ing, fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an 
old discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and 

15 bloody execution. Woe to the school, when he made his 
morning appearance in \i\^passy, or passionate wig. No comet 
expounded surer. J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known 
him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the 
maternal milk hardly dry upon its hps) with a " Sirrah, do you 

20 presume to set your wits at me ? " Nothing was more common 
than to see him make a headlong entry into the school-room, 
from his inner recess, or library, and, with turbulent eye, sin- 
ghng out a lad, roar out, " Od 's my life, sirrah" (his favourite 
adjuration), "I have a great mind to whip you," — then, with 

25 as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into his lair — and 
after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which all but the 
culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong out 

1 In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. 
While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a pig- 
nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery 
walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name of 
Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the chroniclers of that 
sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not 
give it their sanction. B. used to say of it, in a way of half-compliment, 
half-irony, that it was too classical for reprcsenlaUoyi. 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 35 

again, piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some 
Devil's Litany, with the expletory yell — ^'•and I will, /^^." 
In his gentler moods, when the rabidus furor ^2J^ assuaged, he 
had resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have 
heard, to himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates, 5 
at the same time ; a paragraph, and a lash between ; which in 
those times, when parliamentary oratory was most at a height 
and flourishing in these realms, was not calculated to impress 
the patient with a veneration for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. 

Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall 10 
ineffectual from his hand — when droll squinting W , hav- 
ing been caught putting the inside of the master's desk to 
a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it, to 
justify himself, with great simplicity averred, that he did not 
k?iow that the thing had bee^i forewarned. This exquisite 15 
irrecognition of any law antecedent to the oral or declara- 
tory, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who heard 
it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was 
unavoidable. 

L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor, 20 
Coleridge, in his Literary Life, has pronounced a more intel- 
Hgible and ample encomium on them. The author of the 
Country Spectator doubts not to compare him with the ablest 
teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better 

than with the pious ejaculation of C when he heard that 25 

his old master was on his death-bed — " Poor J. B. — may all 
his faults be forgiven ; and may he be wafted to bhss by little 
cherub boys, all head and wings, with no botto??is to reproach 
his sublunary infirmities." 

Under him were many good and sound scholars bred. First 30 
Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of 
boys and men, since Co-grammar-master (and inseparable com- 
panion) with Dr. T e. What an edifying spectacle did 

this brace of friends present to those who remembered the 



36 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 

antisocialities of their predecessors ! You never met the one 
by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly 
dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. 
Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for 

5 each other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in 
advanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was 
not long in discovering that it suited him to lay down the 
fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same 
arm linked in yours at forty, which at thirteen helped it to 

10 turn over the Cicero De Amicitid, or some tale of Antique 
Friendship, which the young heart even then was burning to 

anticipate ! Co-Grecian with S. was Th , who has since 

executed with abihty various diplomatic functions at the North- 
ern courts. Th was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, spar- 

15 ing of speech, with raven locks. Thomas Fanshaw Middleton 
followed him (now Bishop ^of Calcutta), a scholar and a gen- 
tleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent 
critic; and is author (besides the Country Spectator) of a 
Treatise on the Greek Article, against Sharpe. M. is said to 

20 bear his mitre high in India, where the reg?ii novitas (I dare 
say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humiUty quite as prim- 
itive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly fitted to 
impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a rever- 
ence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers 

25 watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild 
and unassuming. Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Rich- 
ards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the 
Oxford Prize Poems ; a pale, studious Grecian. Then followed 
poor S , ill-fated M ! of these the Muse is silent. 

20 Finding some of Edward's race 

Unhappy, pass their annals by. 

Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day- 
spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee 



CHRIST'S HOSPITAL 37 

— the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

— Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — How have I seen the 
casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, entranced with 
admiration (while he weighed the disproportion between the 
speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee S 
unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of 
Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst 
not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in 
his Greek, or Pindar while the walls of the old Grey Friars 
re-echoed to the accents of the inspired charity -b oy ! — Many lo 
were the " wit-combats " (to dally awhile with the words of old 

Fuller) between him and C. V. Le G , "which two I 

behold Hke a Spanish great galleon, and an Enghsh man-of- 
war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher 

in learning, solid, but slow in his performances. C. V. L., with 15 
the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, 
could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all 
winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." 

Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, 
with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which 20 
thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cog- 
nition of some poignant jest of theirs ; or the anticipation of 
some more material, and, peradventure, practical one, of thine 
own. Extinct are those smiles, with that beautiful counte- 
nance, with which (for thou wert the Nireus formostcs of the 25 
school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst disarm 
the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by provok- 
ing pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by 

thy angel-look, exchanged the half- formed terrible " bl ," 

for a gentler greeting — " bless thy handsome face P^ 30 

Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends 

of Elia — the junior Le G and F ; who impelled, 

the former by a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense 
of neglect — ill capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are 



38 THE TWO RACES OF MEN 

sometimes subject to in our seats of learning — exchanged 
their Alma Mater for the camp ; perishing one by climate, 

and one on the plains of Salamanca : — Le G , sanguine, 

volatile, sweet-natured ; F , dogged, faithful, anticipative 

5 of" insult, warm-hearted, with something of the old Roman 
height about him. 

Fine, frank-hearted Fr , the present master of Hertford, 

with Marmaduke T , mildest of Missionaries — and both 

my good friends still — close the catalogue of Grecians in my 
10 time. 

V. THE TWO RACES OF MEN 

The human species, according to the best theory I can form 
of it, is composed of two distinct races, the vie?i who borrow, 
and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may 
be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and 

IS Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. All the dwell- 
ers upon earth, *' Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites," flock 
hither, and do naturally fall in with one or other of these 
primary distinctions. The infinite superiority of the former, 
which I choose to designate as the great race, is discernible in 

20 their figure, port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The 
latter are born degraded. " He shall serve his brethren." 
There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean and 
suspicious ; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous man- 
ners of the other. 

25 Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages 
— Alcibiades — Falstaff — Sir Richard Steele— our late incom- 
parable Brinsley — what a family likeness in all four ! 

What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower ! what 
rosy gills; what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he 

30 manifest, — taking no more thought than lilies ! What con- 
tempt for money, — accounting it (yours and mine especially) 



THE TWO RACES OF MEN 39 

no better than dross ! What a hberal confounding of those 
pedantic distinctions of meiim and tuum / or rather, what a 
noble simpUfication of language (beyond Tooke), resolving 
these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible pronoun 
adjective! — What near approaches doth he make to the S 
primitive community, — to the extent of one-half of the prin- 
cipal at least ! — 

He is the true taxer "who calleth all the world up to be 
taxed"; and the distance is as vast between him and one of 
us, as subsisted betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the poorest 10 
obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem ! — His 
exactions, too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air ! So far 
removed from your sour parochial or state-gatherers, — those 
ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of welcome in their 
faces ! He cometh to you with a smile and troubleth you 15 
with no receipt ; confining himself to no set season. Every 
day is his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He 
applieth the lene tormentum of a pleasant look to your purse, 
— which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as 
naturally as the cloak of the traveller, for which sun and wind 20 
contended ! He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth ! 
The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In 
vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with 
destiny ; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man 
ordained to lend — that thou lose riot in the end, with thy 25 
worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine not pre- 
posterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and of 
Dives ! — but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, 
meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, a handsome 
sacrifice ! - See how light he makes of it ! Strain not courtesies 30 
with a noble enemy. 

Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by 
the death of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who departed 
this life on Wednesday evening; dying, as he had lived, 



40 THE TWO RACES OF MEN 

without much trouble. He boasted himself a descendant from 
mighty ancestors of that name, who heretofore held ducal 
dignities in this realm. In his actions and sentiments he 
behed not the stock to which he pretended. Early in life 
5 he found himself invested with ample revenues ; which with 
that noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent 
in men of the great race^ he took almost immediate measures 
entirely to dissipate and bring to nothing : for there is some- 
thing revolting in the idea of a king holding a private purse ; 
lo and the thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus furnished by 
the very act of disfurnishment ; getting rid of the cumbersome 
luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) 

To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, 

Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise, 

15 he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, 
" borrowing and to borrow ! " 

In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this 
island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of the 
inhabitants under contribution. I reject this estimate as 

20 greatly exaggerated : but having had the honour of accom- 
panying my friend, divers times, in his perambulations about 
this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with the prodi- 
gious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort of respectful 
acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to 

25 explain the phenomenon. It seems, these were his tributaries ; 
feeders of his exchequer ; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was 
pleased to express himself), to whom he had occasionally been 
beholden for a loan. Their multitudes did no way disconcert 
him. He rather took a pride in numbering them ; and, with 

30 Comus, seemed pleased to be " stocked with so fair a herd." 
With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to 
keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an 
aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that " money kept 



THE TWO RACES OF MEN 4 1 

longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it while it 
was fresh. A good part he drank away (for he was an excel- 
lent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he threw away, 
literally tossing and hurling it violently from him — as boys 
do burrs, or as if it had been infectious, — into ponds, or 5 
ditches, or deep holes, — inscrutable cavities of the earth : — 
or he would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by 
a river's side under some bank, which (he would facetiously 
observe) paid no interest — but out away from him it must go 
peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring into the wilderness, while 10 
it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were peren- 
nial which fed his fisc. When new supplies became neces- 
sary, the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, 
friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency. 
For Bigod had an undeniable way with him. He had a cheer- 1 5 
ful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just 
touched with grey {jcana fides). He anticipated no excuse, 
and found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to 
the great race, I would put it to the most untheorizing reader, 
who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, whether 20 
it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to 
refuse such a one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor 
petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mump- 
ing visnomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better ; and 
therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you 25 
do in reality so much less shock in the refusal. 

When I think of this man ; his fiery glow of heart ; his 
swell of feeling ; how magnificent, how ideal he was ; how 
great at the midnight hour ; and when I compare with him the 
companions with whom I have associated since, I grudge the 30 
saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into 
the society of lenders, and little men. 

To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather 
covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators 



42 THE TWO RACES OF MEN 

more formidable than that which I have touched upon ; I 
mean your borrowers of books — those mutilators of col- 
lections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators 
of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch, matchless in his 
5 depredations ! 

That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great 
eye-tooth knocked out — (you are now with me in my little 
back study in Bloomsbury, reader !) — with the huge Switzer- 
like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their 

10 reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once held the tallest 
of my folios. Opera Bonave7iturce^ choice and massy divinity, 
to which its two supporters (school divinity also, but of a 
lesser calibre, — Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas) showed but 
as dwarfs, itself an Ascapart ! — that Comberbatch abstracted 

15 upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I 
confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that " the 
title to property in a book " (my Bonaventure, for instance) 
" is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding 
and appreciating the same." Should he go on acting upon 

20 this theory, which of our shelves is safe? 

The slight vacuum in the left-hand case — two shelves from 
the ceiling — scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye 
of a loser — was whilom the commodious resting-place of 
Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows 

25 more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, 
and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover its 
beauties — but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his 
mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her 
off than himself. — Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their 

30 fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is ! The remain- 
der nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the 
fates borrowed Hector. 'Here stood the Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, in sober state. — There loitered the Complete Angler; 
quiet as in Hfe, by some stream side. — In yonder nook, John 



THE TWO RACES OF MEN 43 

Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed," mourns his 
ravished mate. 

One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like 
the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he 
throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small 5 
under-collection of this nature (my friend's gatherings in his 
various calls), picked up, he has forgotten at what odd places, 
and deposited with as little memory as mine. I take in these 
orphans, the twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are 
welcome as the true Hebrews. There they stand in con- lo 
junction ; natives, and naturalized. The latter seem as little 
disposed to inquire out their true hneage as I am. — I charge 
no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put 
myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of 
them to pay expenses. 15 

To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning 
in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal on your 
viands, if he can give no account of the platter after it. But 
what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., to be so importunate 
to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee 20 
to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, the thrice noble 
Margaret Newcastle? — knowing at the time, and knowing 
that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over 
one leaf of the illustrious folio : — what but the mere spirit 
of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy 25 
friend ? — Then, worst cut of all ! to transport it with thee to 
the Galilean land — 

Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, 

A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, 

Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder! 30 

— hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and 
fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest 
all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales? — Child of 



44 NEW YEAR'S EVE 

the Green-room, it was unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, 
too, that part-French, better-part-Enghshwoman ! — that she 
could fix upon no other treatise to bear away, in kindly token 
of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord 

5 Brook — of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, 
or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a 
tittle ! Was there not Zimmermann o?i Solitude ? 

Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collection, 
be shy of showing it ; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, 

to lend thy books; but let it be to such a one as S. T. C. — he 
will return them (generally anticipating the time appointed) 
with usury; enriched with annotations, tripling their value. 
I have had experience. Many are these precious MSS. of his 
— (in matter oftentimes, and almost in quantity not unfre- 

[5 quently, vying with the originals) — in no very clerkly hand — 
legible in my Daniel ; in old Burton ; in Sir Thomas Browne ; 
and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas ! wan- 
dering in Pagan lands. — I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, 
nor thy library, against S. T. C. 



VI. NEW YEAR'S EVE 

20 Every man hath two birthdays : two days, at least, in every 
year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it 
affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an 
especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude 
of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper 

25 birthday hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who 
reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand any- 
thing in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of a New 
Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king 
or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January 

30 with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 45 

and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our 
common Adam. 

Of all sound of all bells — (bells, the music nighest border- 
ing upon heaven) — most solemn and touching is the peal 
which rings out the Old Year. I never hear it without a 5 
gathering-up of my mind to a concentration of all the images 
that have been diffused over the past twelvemonth ; all I have 
done or suffered, performed or neglected — in that regretted 
time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person dies. It 
takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a 10 
contemporary, when he exclaimed 

I saw the skirts of the departing Year. 

It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us 
seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am 
sure I felt it, and all felt it with me, last night; though some 15 
of my companions affected rather to manifest an exhilaration at 
the birth of the coming year, than any very tender regrets for 
the decease of its predecessor. But 1 am none of those who 

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. 

I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties ; new books, 20 
new faces, new years, — from some mental twist which makes 
it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased 
to hope ; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other 
(former) years. I plunge into foregone visions and conclu- 
sions. I encounter pell-mell with past disappointments. I am 25 
armour-proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or over- 
come in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, 
as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so 
dear, I would scarce now have any of those untoward acci- 
dents and events of my Hfe reversed. I would no more 30 
alter them than the incidents of some well-contrived novel. 
Methinks, it is better that I should have pined away seven of 



46 NEW YEAR'S EVE 

my goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and 
fairer eyes, of Alice W n, than that so passionate a love- 
adventure should be lost. It was better that our family 
should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us 
5 of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand 
pounds i7i banco, and be without the idea of that specious old 
rogue. 

In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look 
back upon those early days. Do I advance a paradox, when 

lo I say that, skipping over the intervention of forty years, a 
man may have leave to love himself, without the imputation 
of self-love? 

If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is introspec- 
tive — and mine is painfully so — can have a less respect for 

15 his present identity, than I have for the man Elia. I know 
him to be light, and vain, and humoursome ; a notorious . . . ; 
addicted to ... ; averse from counsel, neither taking it, nor 
offering it ; — . . . besides ; a stammering buffoon ; what you 
will ; lay it on, and spare not ; I subscribe to it all, and much 

20 more, than thou canst be willing to lay at his door — but 
for the child Elia — that "other me," there, in the background 

— I must take leave to cherish the remembrance of that young 
master — with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid 
changeling of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child of 

25 some other house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its 
patient small-pox at five, and rougher medicaments. I can 
lay its poor fevered head upon the sick pillow at Christ's, and 
wake with it in surprise at the gentle posture of maternal 
tenderness hanging over it, that unknown had watched its sleep. 

30 I know how it shrank from any the least colour of falsehood. 

— God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed ! Thou art 
sophisticated. — I know how honest, how courageous (for a 
weakling) it was — how religious, how imaginative, how hope- 
ful ! From what have I not fallen, if the child I remember 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 4/ 

was indeed myself, — and not some dissembling guardian, pre- 
senting a false identity, to give the rule to my unpractised 
steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being ! 

That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sympathy, in 
such retrospection, may be the symptom of some sickly idio- 5 
syncrasy. Or is it owing to another cause ; simply, that being 
without wife or family, I have not learned to project myself 
enough out of myself; and having no offspring of my own 
to dally with, I turn back upon memory, and adopt my own 
early idea, as my heir and favourite? If these speculations 10 
seem fantastical to thee, reader — (a busy man, perchance), if 
I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am singularly 
conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, under the 
phantom cloud of Elia. 

The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a character 15 
not likely to let slip the sacred observance of any old institu- 
tion : and the ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them 
with circumstances of peculiar ceremony. — In those days the 
sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise 
hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of 20 
pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived 
what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned 
me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, 
never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, 
and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of 25 
life ; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a 
hot June we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing 
days of December. But now, shall I confess a truth? — I feel 
these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabili- 
ties of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments 30 
and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. In proportion as 
the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their 
periods and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke 
of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away " like a 



48 NEW YEAR'S EVE 

weaver's shuttle." Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten 
the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried 
with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity ; and 
reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with 
5 this green earth ; the face of town and country ; the unspeak- 
able rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would 
set up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the 
age to which I am arrived ; I, and my friends : to be no younger, 
no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by 

lo age ; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. — 
Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, 
puzzles and discomposes me. My household gods plant a 
terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They 
do not willingly seek Lavinian shores. A new state of being 

15 staggers me. 

Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer 
holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices 
of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and 
candle-light, and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, 

20 and jests, and irony itself — do these things go out with hfe? 
Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are 
pleasant with him ? 

And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios ! must I part 
with the intense delight of having you (huge armfuls) in my 

25 embraces ? Must knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by 
some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by this 
familiar process of reading ? 

Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indica- 
tions which point me to them here, — the recognizable face — 

30 the *' sweet assurance of a look " ? — 

In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying — to give it 
its mildest name — does more especially haunt and beset me. 
In a genial August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is 
almost problematic. At those times do such poor snakes as 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 49 

myself enjoy an immortality. Then we expand and burgeon. 
Then are we as strong again, as valiant again, as wise again, 
and a great deal taller. The blast that nips and shrinks me, 
puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to the insub- 
stantial, wait upon that master feeling ; cold, numbness, dreams, 5 
perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral 
appearances, — that cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus's sickly 
sister, like that innutritions one denounced in the Canticles : — 
I am none of her minions — I hold with the Persian. 

Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death 10 
into my mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that 
capital plague-sore. — I have heard some profess an indiffer- 
ence to life. Such hail the end of their existence as a port 
of refuge : and speak of the grave as of some soft arms, in 
which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some have wooed 15 
death — but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phantom ! 
I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give thee to 
six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused 
or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper ; to be branded, 
proscribed, and spoken evil of ! In no way can I be brought to 20 
digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation, or more frightful 
and confounding Positive/ 

Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are 
altogether frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what satis- 
faction hath a man, that he shall " lie down with kings and 25 
emperors in death," who in his lifetime never greatly coveted 
the society of such bedfellows ? — or, forsooth, that " so shall 
the fairest face appear?" — why, to comfort me, must Alice 

W n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust at 

those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon 30 
your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon 
himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that " such 
as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, per- 
haps as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move 



50 NEW YEAR'S EVE 

about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters ! Thy 
New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly candidate for 
182 1. Another cup of wine — and while that turn-coat bell, 
that just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 
5 departed, with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us 
attune to its peal the song made on a like occasion, by hearty, 
cheerful Mr. Cotton. 

The New Year 

Hark ! the cock crows, and yon bright star 

Tells us the day himself 's not far; 
10 And see where, breaking from the night, 

He gilds the western hills with light. 

With him old Janus doth appear. 

Peeping into the future year, 

With such a look as seems to say, 
15 The prospect is not good that way. 

Thus do we rise ill sights to see, 

And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy ; 

When the prophetic fear of things 

A more tormenting mischief brings, 
20 More full of soul-tormenting gall, 

Than direct mischiefs can befall. 

But stay ! but stay ! methinks my sight, 

Better inform'd by clearer light. 

Discerns sereneness in that brow, 
25 That all contracted seem'd but now. 

His revers'd face may show distaste. 

And frown upon the ills are past ; 

But that which this way looks is clear, 

And smiles upon the New-born Year. 
30 He looks too from a place so high, 

The Year lies open to his eye ; 

And all the moments open are 

To the exact discoverer. 

Yet more and more he smiles upon 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 5 I 

The happy revolution. 

Why should we then suspect or fear 

The influences of a year, 

So smiles upon us the first morn, 

And speaks us good so soon as born? 5 

Plague on't! the last was ill enough. 

This cannot but make better proof ; 

Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through 

The last, why so we may this too : 

And then the next in reason should 10 

Be superexcellently good : 

For the worst ills (we daily see) 

Have no more perpetuity. 

Than the best fortunes that do fall ; 

Which also bring us wherewithal jc 

Longer their being to support, 

Than those do of the other sort : 

And who has one good year in three, 

And yet repines at destiny. 

Appears ungrateful in the case, 20 

And merits not the good he has. 

Then let us welcome the New Guest 

With lusty brimmers of the best ; 

Mirth always should Good Fortune meet, 

And render e'en Disaster sweet : 25 

And though the Princess turn her back, 

Let us but line ourselves with sack, 

We better shall by far hold out. 

Till the next Year she face about. 

How say you, reader — do not these verses smack of the 30 
rough magnanimity of the old English vein? Do they not 
fortify like a cordial ; enlarging the heart, and productive of 
sweet blood, and generous spirits, in the concoction? Where 
be those puling fears of death, just now expressed or affected ? 
— Passed like a cloud — absorbed in the purging sunlight 35 
of clear poetry — clean washed away by a wave of genuine 



52 MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries — And now 
another cup of the generous ! and a merry New Year, and many 
of them, to you all, my masters ! 



VII. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

"A CLEAR fire, a clean hearth,^ and the rigour of the game." 

5 This was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with 
God), who, next to her devotions, loved a good game at whist. 
She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half and half 
players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you w^ant one 
to make up a rubber ; who affirm that they have no pleasure in 

10 winning; that they like to win one game and lose another;'^ 
that they can while away an hour very agreeably at a card- 
table, but are indifferent whether they play or no ; and will 
desire an adversary, who has slipped a wrong card, to take it 
up and play another. These insufferable triflers are the curse 

15 of a table. One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such 
it may be said, that they do not play at cards, but only play at 
playing at them. 

Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, 
as I do, from her heart and soul ; and would not, save upon 

20 a striking emergency, willingly seat herself at the same table 
wath them. She loved a thorough-paced partner, a determined 
enemy. She took, and gave no concessions. She hated favours. 
She never made a revoke, nor ever passed it over in her adver- 
sary without exacting the utmost forfeiture. She fought a 

25 good fight : cut and thrust. She held not her good sword (her 

1 This was before the introduction of rugs, reader. You must 
remember the intolerable crash of the unswept cinder, betwixt your 
foot and the marble. 

2 As if a sportsman should tell you he liked to kill a fox one day, and 
lose him the next. 



MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 53 

cards) "like a dancer." She sat bolt upright; and neither 
showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people 
have their blind side — their superstitions ; and I have heard 
her declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. 

I never in my life — and I knew Sarah Battle many of the 5 
best years of it — saw her take out her snufE-box when it was 
her turn to play ; or snuff a candle in the middle of a game ; 
or ring for a servant, till it was fairly over. She never intro- 
duced, or connived at, miscellaneous conversation during its 
process. As she emphatically observed, cards were cards : 10 
and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century 
countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a 
literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take 
a hand ; and who, in his excess of candour, declared, that 
he thought there was no harm in unbending the mind now 15 
and then, after serious studies, in recreations of that kind ! 
She could not bear to have her noble occupation, to which 
she wound up her faculties, considered in that light. It was 
her business, her duty, the thing she came into the world to 
do, — and she did it. She unbent her mind afterwards — 20 
over a book. 

Pope was her favourite author ; his Rape of the Lock her 
favourite work. She once did me the favour to play over with 
me (with the cards) his celebrated game of Ombre in that 
poem ; and to explain to me how far it agreed with, and in 25 
what points it would be found to differ from, traydrille. Her 
illustrations were apposite and poignant; and I had the 
pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles; 
but I suppose they came too late to be inserted among his 
ingenious notes upon that author. 30 

Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love ; but 
whist had engaged her maturer esteem. .The former, she 
said, was showy and specious, and likely to allure young per- 
sons. The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners- — a 



54 MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

thing which the constancy of whist abhors ; — the dazzling 
supremacy and regal investiture of Spadille — absurd, as she 
justly observed, in the • pure aristocracy of whist, where his 
crown and garter give him no proper power above his brother- 
5 nobility of the Aces ; — the giddy vanity, so taking to the 
inexperienced, of playing alone ; — above all, the overpowering 
attractions of a Sa7is Prendre Vole^ — to the triumph of which 
there is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the con- 
tingencies of whist ; — all these, she would say, make quadrille 

lo a game of captivation to the young and enthusiastic. But 
whist was the solider game : that was her word. It was a 
long meal ; not, Hke quadrille, a feast of snatches. One or 
two rubbers might co-extend in duration with an evening. 
They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate steady 

15 enmities. She despised the chance-started, capricious, and 
ever fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of 
quadrille, she would say, reminded her of the petty ephem- 
eral embroilments of the little Italian states, depicted by 
Machiavel; perpetually changing postures and connections; 

20 bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings to-morrow; kissing and 
scratching in a breath ; — but the wars of whist were com- 
parable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational antipathies 
of the great French and English nations. 

A grave simphcity was what she chiefly admired in her 

25 favourite game. There was nothing silly in it, Hke the nob 
in cribbage — nothing superfluous. No flushes — that most 
irrational of all pleas that a reasonable being can set up : — 
that any one should claim four by virtue of holding cards of 
the same mark and colour, without reference to the playing 

30 of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions of the 
cards themselves ! She held this to be a solecism ; as pitiful 
an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She 
despised superficiality, and looked deeper than the colours of 
things. — Suits were soldiers, she would say, and must have a 



MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 55 

uniformity of array to distinguish them : but what should we 
say to a foolish squire, who should claim a merit from dressing 
up his tenantry in red jackets that never were to be marshalled 
— never to take the field ? — she even wished that whist were 
more simple than it is ; and in my mind, would have stripped 5 
it of some appendages, which in the state of human frailty, 
may be venially, and even commendably, allowed of. She saw 
no reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the 
card. Why not one suit always trumps? — Why two colours, 
when the mark of the suits would have sufficiently distinguished 10 
them without it ? — 

" But the eye, my dear madam, is agreeably refreshed with 
the variety. Man is not a creature of pure reason — he must 
have his senses delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman 
Catholic countries, where the music and the paintings draw in 15 
many to worship, whom your quaker spirit of unsensualizing 
would have kept out. — You, yourself, have a pretty collection 
of paintings — but confess to me, whether, walking in your 
gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, or among 
the Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom 20 
glow with an elegant delight, at all comparable to that you 
have it in your power to experience most evenings over a well- 
arranged assortment of the court cards? — the pretty antic 
habits, like heralds in a procession — the gay triumph-assur- 
ing scarlets — the contrasting deadly-killing sables — the '• hoary 25 
majesty of spades ' — Pam in all his glory ! — 

"All these might be dispensed with; and, with their naked 
names upon the drab pasteboard, the game might go on very 
well, pictureless. But the beauty of cards would be extin- 
guished for ever. Stripped of all that is imaginative in them, 30 
they must degenerate into mere gambling. — Imagine a dull 
deal- board, or drum head, to spread them on, instead of that 
nice verdant carpet (next to nature's), fittest arena for those 
courtly combatants to play their gallant jousts and turneys in ! 



56 MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

— Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers — (work of 
Chinese artist, unconscious of their symbol, — or as profanely 
slighting their true appHcation as the arrantest Ephesian jour- 
neyman that turned out those little shrines for the goddess) — . 
5 exchange them for Httle bits of leather (our ancestors' money) 
or chalk and a slate ! " — 

The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my 
logic ; and to her approbation of my arguments on her favour- 
ite topic that evening, I have always fancied myself indebted 

lo for the legacy of a curious cribbage-board, made of the finest 
Sienna marble, which her maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, 
whom I have elsewhere celebrated) brought with him from 
Florence : — this, and a trifle of five hundred pounds, came 
to me at her death. 

15 The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have 
kept with religious care ; though she herself, to confess a 
truth, was never greatly taken with cribbage. It was an 
essentially vulgar game, I have heard her say, — disputing 
with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She could never 

20 heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "^<? " — or ^''that's 
a go.''' She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging 
teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five dollar 
stake), because she would not take advantage of the turn-up 
knave, which would have given it her, but which she must 

25 have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring '^ two for 
his heels." There is something extremely genteel in this sort 
of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born. 

Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, 
though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms — such 

30 as pique — repique — the capot — they savoured (she thought) 
of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never 
greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She 
would argue thus : — Cards are warfare : the ends are gain, 
with glory. But cards are war in disguise of a sport : when 



MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 57 

single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too pal- 
pable. By themselves, it is too close a fight ; with spectators, 
it is not much bettered. No looker-on can be interested, 
except for a bet, and then it is a mere affair of money ; he 
cares not for your luck sympathetically^ or for your play. — 5 
Three are still worse ; a mere naked war of every man against 
every man, as in cribbage, without league or alliance; or a 
rotation of petty and contradictory interests, a succession of 
heartless leagues, and not much more hearty infractions of 
them, as in traydrille. — But in square games {she meant whist) 10 
all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is accom- 
plished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, 
common to every species — though the latter can be but very 
imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, where the spec- 
tator is only feebly a participator. But the parties in whist 15 
are spectators and principals too. They are a theatre to them- 
selves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is rather worse 
than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist abhors neutrahty, 
or interests beyond its sphere. You glory in some surprising 
stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold — or even an 20 
interested — bystander witnesses it, but because your partner 
sympathizes in the contingency. You win for two. You 
triumph for two. Two are exalted. Two again are morti- 
fied ; which divides their disgrace, as the conjunction doubles 
(by taking off the invidiousness) your glories. Two losing 25 
to two are better reconciled, than one to one in that close 
butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying the 
channels. War becomes a civil game. — By such reasonings 
as these the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite 
pastime. 30 

No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any 
game, where chance entered into the composition, for nothing. 
Chance, she would argue — and here again, admire the subtlety 
of her conclusion ! — chance is nothing, but where something 



58 MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

else depends upon it. It is obvious that cannot be glory. 
What rational cause of exultation could it give to a man to 
turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself? or 
before spectators, where no stake was depending? — Make 
5 a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate 
number — and what possible principle of our nature, except 
stupid wonderment, could it gratify to gain that number as 
many times successively, without a prize? — Therefore she 
disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, where it was 

10 not played for money. She called it fooHsh, and those 
people idiots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such 
circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her 
fancy. Played for a stake, they were a mere system of over- 
reaching. Played for glory, they were a mere setting of one 

15 man's wit — his memory, or combination-faculty rather — 
against another's ; like a mock-engagement at a review, blood- 
less and profitless. — She could not conceive a game wanting 
the sprightly infusion of chance, — the handsome excuses of 
good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a 

20 room, whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire 
her with insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut simili- 
tudes of Castles a^nd Knights, the miagery of the board, she 
would argue (and I think in this case justly), were entirely 
misplaced and senseless. Those hard head-contests can in no 

25 instance ally with the fancy. They reject form and colour. 
A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper arena 
for such combatants. 

To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad 
passions, she would retort that man is a gaming animal. He 

30 must be always trying to get the better in something or other : 
— that this passion can scarcely be more safely expended than 
upon a game at cards : that cards are a temporary illusion ; in 
truth, a mere drama ; for we do but play at being mightily 
concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, yet, during 



MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 59 

the illusion, we are as mightily concerned as those whose stake 
is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting ; 
much ado ; great battling and little bloodshed ; mighty means 
for disproportioned ends ; quite as diverting, and a great deal 
more innoxious, than many of those more serious games of life, 5 
which men play, without esteeming them to be such. 

With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these 
matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my life, 
when playing at cards for nothiiig has even been agreeable. 
When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes 10 
call for the cards, and play a game at piquet y^r love with my 
cousin Bridget — Bridget Elia. 

I grant there is something sneaking in it : but with a 
toothache, or a sprained ankle, — when you are subdued and 
humble, — you are glad to put up with an inferior spring of 15 
action. 

There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as sick 
whist. — 

I grant it is not the highest style of man — I deprecate the 
manes of Sarah Battle — she lives not, alas ! to whom I should 20 
apologize. — 

At such times, those terms which my old friend objected to, 
come in as something admissible. — I love to get a tierce or 
a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am subdued to an 
inferior interest. Those shadows of winning amuse me. 25 

That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her) 
— (dare I tell thee, how foolish I am ?) — I wished it might 
have lasted for ever, though we gained nothing, and lost noth- 
ing, though it was a mere shade of play : I would be content 
to go on in that idle folly for ever. The pipkin should be ever 30 
boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive to my foot, 
which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over : 
and as I do not much rehsh appliances, there it should ever 
bubble. Bridget and I should be ever playing. 



60 VALENTINE'S DAY 



VIII. VALENTINE'S DAY 

Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine ! Great is 
thy name in the rubric, thou venerable x^rch-flamen of Hymen ! 
Immortal Go-between ! who and what manner of person art 
thou ? Art thou but a 7iame, typifying the restless principle which 
5 impels poor humans to seek perfection in union ? or wert thou in- 
deed a mortal prelate, with thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron 
on, and decent lawn sleeves ? Mysterious personage ! like unto 
thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calen- 
dar ; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril ; nor the consigner of 
10 undipped infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom all mothers 
hate ; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen ; nor Bishop Bull, 
nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended 
with thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is 

Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings, 

15 Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors; and 

instead of the crozier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee. 

In other words, this is the day on which those charming Httle 

missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other 

at every street and turning. The weary and all forespent two- 

20 penny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, 
not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this 
ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the 
great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and 
bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so 

25 common as the hearty — that little three-cornered exponent of 
all our hopes and fears, — the bestuck and bleeding heart ; it 
is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations 
than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or 
mythology for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God 

30 Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not 



VALENTINE'S DAY 6 1 

very clear ; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any 
other. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system 
which might have prevailed for anything which our pathology 
knows to the contrary, a lover, addressing his mistress, in 
perfect simplicity of feeling, " Madam, my liver and fortune 5 
are entirely at your disposal;" or putting a delicate question, 
'^ Amanda, have you a midriff \.o bestow?" But custom has 
settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to the 
aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at 
animal and anatomical distance. lo 

Not many sounds in Hfe, and I include all urban and all rural 
sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door. It " gives a 
very echo to the throne where hope is seated." But its issues 
seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so seldom that just 
the person we want to see comes. But of all the clamorous 15 
visitations the welcomest in expectation is the sound that ushers 
in, or seems to usher in, a Valentine. As the raven himself 
was hoarse that announced the fatal entrance of Duncan, so 
the knock of the' postman on this day is light, airy, confident, 
and befitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is less mechan- 20 
ical than on other days ; you will say, " that is not the post, I 
am sure." Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens ! — delight- 
ful eternal commonplaces, which " having been will always be ;" 
which no school-boy nor school-man can write away; having 
your irreversible throne in the fancy and affections — what are 25 
your transports, when the happy maiden, opening with careful 
finger, careful not to break the emblematic seal, bursts upon the 
sight of some well-designed allegory, some type, some youth- 
ful fancy, not without verses — 

Lovers all, 30 

A madrigal, 

or some such device, not over-abundant in sense — young Love 
disclaims it, — and not quite silly — something between wind 



62 . VALENTINE'S DAY 

and water, a chorus where the sheep might almost join the 

shepherd, as they did, or as I apprehend they .did, in Arcadia. 

All Valentines are not foolish ; and I shall not easily forget 

thine, my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) 

5 E. B. — E. B. lived opposite a young maiden, whom he had 

often seen, unseen, from his parlour window in C e Street. 

She was all joyousness and innocence, and just of an age to 
enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a temper to bear the 
disappointment of missing one with good humour. E. B. is 

lo an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of design- 
ing, perhaps inferior to none ; his name is known at the bottom 
of many a well-executed vignette in the way of his profession, 
but no further; for E. B. is modest, and the world meets 
nobody half-way. E, B. meditated how he could repay this 

15 young maiden for many a favour which she had done him 
unknown ; for when a kindly face greets us, though but pass- 
ing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it 
as an obligation ; and E. B. did. This good artist set himself 
at work to please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's 

20 day three years since. He wrought, unseen, and unsuspected, 
a wondrous work. We need not say it was on the finest gilt 
paper, with borders — full, not of common hearts and heartless 
allegory, but all the prettiest stories of love from Ovid and 
older poets than Ovid (for E. B. is a scholar). There was 

25 Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor 
Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, 
with mottoes and fanciful devices, such as beseemed — a work 
in short of magic. Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's 
eve he commended to the all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice 

30 — (O ignoble trust !) — of the common post ; but the humble 
medium did its duty, and from his watchful stand, the next 
morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by-and-by 
the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy 
girl unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as 



A QUAKERS' MEETING 63 

one after one the pretty emblems mifolded themselves. She 
danced about, not with light love or foolish expectations, for 
she had no lover ; or, if she had, none she knew that could 
have created those bright images which delighted her. It was 
more like some fairy present ; a God-send, as our familiarly 5 
pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where the bene- 
factor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would 
do her good for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. 
I only give this as a specimen of E. B. and his modest way 
of doing a concealed kindness. 10 

"Good-morrow to my Valentine," sings poor Ophelia; and 
no better wish, but with better auspices, we wish to all faith- 
ful lovers, who are not too wise to despise old legends, but are 
content to rank themselves humble diocesans of old Bishop 
Valentine, and his true church. 15 



IX. A QUAKERS' MEETING 

Still-born Silence ! thou that art 

Flood-gate of the deeper heart! 

Offspring of a heavenly kind ! 

Frost 0' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind I 

Secrecy's confidant, and he 20 

Who makes religion mystery ! 

Admiration's speaking'st tongue ! 

Leave, thy desert shades among, 

Reverend hermits' hallow'd cells, 

Where retired devotion dwells! 25 

With thy enthusiasms come. 

Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb! 

Fleckno.1 

Reader, wouldst thou know what true peace and quiet 

mean; wouldst thou find a refuge from the noises and 

clamours of the multitude ; wouldst thou enjoy at once soli- 30 

tude and society; wouldst thou possess the depth of thy own 

i " Love's Dominion," 



64 A QUAKERS' MEETING 

spirit in stillness, without being shut out from the consol- 
atory faces of thy species; wouldst thou be alone, and yet 
accompanied; soHtary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not 
without some to keep thee in countenance ; a unit in aggre- 
5 gate ; a simple in composite : — come with me into a Quakers' 
Meeting. 

Dost thou love silence as deep as that " before the winds 
were made?" go not out into the wilderness, descend not 
into the profundities of the earth ; shut not up thy casements ; 

10 nor pour wax into the little cells of thy ears, with little-faithed 
self-mistrusting Ulysses. — Retire with me into a Quakers' 
Meeting. 

For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold 
his peace, it is commendable ; but for a multitude, it is great 

15 mastery. 

What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this 
place? what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes? — 
here the goddess reigns and revels. — " Boreas, and Cesias, 
and Argestes loud," do not with their inter-confounding 

20 uproars more augment the brawl — nor the waves of the 
blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds — than their opposite 
(Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more 
intense by numbers and by sympathy. She too hath her 
deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath a positive 

25 more and less; and closed eyes would seem to obscure the 
great obscurity of midnight. 

There are wounds, which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. 
By imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. 
The perfect is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, 

30 but nowhere so absolutely as in a Quakers' Meeting. — 
Those first hermits did certainly understand this principle, 
when they retired into Egyptian solitudes, not singly, but in 
shoals, to enjoy one another's want of conversation. The 
Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing spirit of 



A QUAKERS' MEETING 65 

incommunicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleasant 
as to be reading a book through a long winter evening, with a 
friend sitting by — say, a wife — he, or she, too (if that be 
probable), reading another, without interruption, or oral com- 
munication? — can there be no sympathy without the gabble 5 
of words? — away with this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and- 
cavern-haunting sohtariness. Give me. Master Zimmermann, 
a sympathetic solitude. 

To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some 
cathedral, time-stricken ; ^° 

Or under hanging mountains, 
Or by the fall of fountains; 

is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those enjoy, 
who come together for the purposes of more complete, 
abstracted solitude. This is the loneliness "to be felt." — 15 
The Abbey Church of Westminster hath nothing so solemn, so 
spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and benches of a Quakers' 
Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, 

sands, ignoble things, 

Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings — 20 

but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself into the 
foreground — Silence — eldest of things — language of old 
Night — primitive Discourser — to which the insolent decays 
of mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as 
we may say, unnatural progression. 25 

How reverend is the view of these hush'd heads 
Looking tranquillity! 

Nothing-plotting, nought-cabalUng, unmischievous synod ! 
convocation without intrigue ! parliament without debate ! what 
a lesson dost thou read to council, and to consistory ! — if my 30 
pen treat of you lightly — as haply it will wander — yet my 



66 A QUAKERS' MEETING 

Spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom of your custom, when sitting 
among you in deepest peace, which some out-welling tears 
would rather confirm than disturb, I have reverted to the times 
of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed by Fox and 
5 Dewesbury. — I have witnessed that, which brought before my 
eyes your heroic tranquilHty, inflexible to the rude jests and 
serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, 
sent to molest you — for ye sate betwixt the fires of two per- 
secutions, the out-cast and off-scouring of church and presby- 

10 tery, — I have seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered 
into your receptacle, with the avowed intention of disturbing 
your quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive in a 
moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye as a lamb 
amidst lambs. And I remembered Penn before his accusers, 

15 and Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as 
he tells us, and " the Judge and the Jury became as dead men 
under his -feet." 

Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recom- 
mend to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's 

20 History of the Quakers. It is in folio, and is the abstract of 
the journals of Fox, and the Primitive Friends. It is far more 
edifying and affecting than anything you will read of Wesley 
and his colleagues. Here is nothing to stagger you, nothing to 
make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, no drop or dreg of 

25 the worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here read the true 
story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps hath 
been a by-word in your mouth), — James Nay lor : what dread- 
ful sufferings, with what patience, he endured, even to the 
boring through of his tongue with red-hot irons without a mur- 

30 mur ; and with what strength of mind, when the delusion he 
had fallen into, which they stigmatized for blasphemy, had 
given way to clearer thoughts, he could renounce his error, in 
a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet keep his first grounds, 
and be a Quaker still ! — so different from the practice of your 



A QUAKERS' MEETING 6/ 

common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they apostatize, 
apostatize all, and think they can never get far enough from 
the society of their former errors, even to the renunciation of 
some saving truths, with which they had been mingled, not 
impHcated. 5 

Get the writings of John Woolman by heart ; and love the 
early Quakers. 

How far the followers of these good men in our days 
have kept to the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they 
have substituted formaUty for it, the Judge of Spirits can alone lo 
determine. I have seen faces in their assembhes, upon which 
the dove sate visibly brooding. Others again I have watched, 
when my thoughts should have been better engaged, in which 
I could possibly detect nothing but a blank inanity. But 
quiet was in all, and the disposition to unanimity, and the 15 
absence of the fierce controversial workings. — If the spiritual 
pretensions of the Quakers have abated, at least they make 
few pretences. Hypocrites they certainly are not, in their 
preaching. It is seldom indeed that you shall see one get up 
amongst them to hold forth. Only now and then a trembling 20 
female, generally ancient, voice is heard — you cannot guess 
from what part of the meeting it proceeds — with a low, buzz- 
ing, musical sound, laying out a few words which " she thought 
might suit the condition of some present," with a quaking dif- 
fidence which leaves no possibility of supposing that anything 25 
of female vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so full of 
tenderness, and a restraining modesty. — The men, from what 
I have observed, speak seldomer. 

Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a sample 
of the old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of giant stature, who, 30 
as Wordsworth phrases it, might have danced " from head to 
foot equipt in iron mail." His frame was of iron too. But he 
was malleable. I saw him shake all over with the spirit — I 
dare not say, of delusion. The strivings of the outer man were 



68 A QUAKERS' MEETING 

unutterable — he seemed not to speak, but to be spoken from. 
I saw the strong man bowed down, and his knees to fail — his 
joints all seemed loosening — it was a figure to set off against 
Paul preaching — the words he uttered were few, and sound 
5 — he was evidently resisting his will — keeping down his own 
word-wisdom with more mighty effort, than the world's orators 
strain for theirs. *' He had been a Wit in his youth," he told 
us, with expressions of a sober remorse. And it was not till 
long after the impression had begun to wear away, that I was 

lo enabled, with something like a smile, to recall the striking 
incongruity of the confession — understanding the term in its 
worldly acceptation — with the frame and physiognomy of the 
person before me. His brow would have scared away the 
Levites — the Jocos Risus-que — faster than the Loves fled 

15 the face of Dis at Enna. — By wit, even in his youth, I will be 
sworn he understood something far within the limits of an 
allowable liberty. 

More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a word 
having been spoken. But the mind has been fed. You go 

20 away with a sermon, not made with hands. You have been in 
the milder caverns of Trophonius ; or as in some den, where 
that fiercest and savagest of all wild creatures, the Tongue, 
that unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and captive. 
You have bathed with stillness. — O when the spirit is sore 

25 fretted, even tired to sickness of the janglings, and nonsense- 
noises of the world, what a balm and a solace it is, to go and 
seat yourself, for a quiet half-hour, upon some undisputed cor- 
ner of a bench, among the gentle Quakers ! 

Their garb and stillness conjoined, present an uniformity, 

30 tranquil and herdlike — as in the pasture — '' forty feeding 
like one." — 

The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of receiv- 
ing a soil ; and cleanliness in them to be something more than 
the absence of its contrary. Every Quakeress is a Hly; and 



MY RELATIONS 69 

when they come up in bands to their Whitsun-conferences, , 
whitening the easterly streets of the metropoHs, from all parts 
of the United Kingdom, they show like troops of the Shining 
Ones. 

X. MY RELATIONS 

I AM arrived at that point of life, at which a man may 5 
account it a blessing, as it is a singularity, if he have either 
of his parents surviving. I have not that felicity — and some- 
times think feelingly of a passage in " Browne's Christian 
Morals," where he speaks of a man that hath lived sixty or 
seventy years in the world. " In such a compass of time," he 10 
says, " a man may have a close apprehension what it is to be 
forgotten, when he hath lived to find none who could remem- 
ber his father, or scarcely the friends of his youth, and may sen- 
sibly see with what a face in no long time Oblivion will look 
upon himself." 15 

I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one whom 
single blessedness had soured to the world. She often used 
to say, that I was the only thing in it which she loved ; and, 
when she thought I was quitting it, she grieved over me with 
mother's tears. A partiahty quite so exclusive my reason can- 20 
not altogether approve. She was from morning till night por- 
ing over good books, and devotional exercises. Her favourite 
volumes were Thomas a Kempis, in Stanhope's Translation; 
and a Roman Catholic Prayer- Book, with the matins and co7n- 
plines regularly set down, — terms which I was at that time too 25 
young to understand. She persisted in reading them, although 
admonished daily concerning their Papistical tendency; and 
went to church every Sabbath, as a good Protestant should 
do. These were the only books she studied ; though, I think, 
at one period of her Hfe, she told me she had read with 30 
great satisfaction the "Adventures of an Unfortunate Young 



yO MY RELATIONS 

Nobleman." Finding the door of the chapel in Essex Street 
open one day — it was in the infancy of that heresy — she went 
in, liked the sermon, and the manner of worship, and frequented 
it at intervals for some time after. She came not for doctri- 
5 nal points, and never missed them. With some Httle asperities 
in her constitution, which I have above hinted at, she was a 
steadfast friendly being, and a fine o/d Christia7i. She was a 
woman of strong sense, and a shrewd mind ^extraordinary at 
a repartee ; one of the few occasions of her breaking silence 

lo — else she did not much value wit. The only secular employ- 
ment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was, the split- 
ting of French beans, and dropping them into a China basin of 
fair water. The odour of those tender vegetables to this day 
comes back upon my sense, redolent of soothing recollections. 

15 Certainly it is the most delicate of culinary operations. 

Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none — to 
remember. By the uncle's side I may be said to have been 
born an orphan. Brother, or sister, I never had any — to 
know them. A sister, I think, that should have been Elizabeth, 

20 died in both our infancies. What a comfort, or what a care, 
may I not have missed in her ! — But I have cousins, sprinkled 
about in Hertfordshire — besides two, with whom I have been 
all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, and whom I may 
term cousins/<2r excelle7ice. These are James and Bridget Elia. 

25 They are older than myself by twelve, and ten, years ; and 
neither of them seems disposed, in matters of advice and guid- 
ance, to waive any of the prerogatives which primogeniture 
confers. May they continue still in the same mind ; and when 
they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three, years old (I can- 

30 not spare them sooner), persist in treating me in my grand 
climacteric precisely as a stripHng, or younger brother ! 

James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities, 
which not every critic can penetrate ; or, if we feel, we cannot 
explain them. The pen of Yorick, and none since his, could 



MY RELATIONS /I 

have drawn J. E. entire — those fine Shandean Hghts and 
shades, which make up his story. I must Hmp after in my 
poor antithetical manner, as the fates have given me grace and 
talent. J. E. then — to the eye of a common observer at least 

— seemeth made up of contradictory principles. — The genu- 5 
ine child of impulse, the frigid philosopher of prudence — the 
phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is invariably at war with his 
temperament, which is high sanguine. With always some fire- 
new project in his brain, J. E. is the systematic opponent of 
innovation, and crier-down of everything that has not stood the 10 
test of age and experiment. With a hundred fine notions chas- 
ing one another hourly in his fancy, he is startled at the least 
approach to the romantic in others ; and, determined by his own 
sense in everything, commends you to the guidance of com- 
mon-sense on all occasions. — With a touch of the eccentric in 15 
all which he does, or says, he is only anxious that you should 
not commit yourself by doing anything absurd or singular. 
On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a 
certain popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to say so 

— for the world would think me mad. He disguises a passion- 20 
ate fondness for works of high art (whereof he hath amassed 

a choice collection), under the pretext of buying only to sell 
again — that his enthusiasm may give no encouragement to 
yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that piece of tender pas- 
toral Domenichino hang still by his wall? — is the ball of his 25 
sight much more dear to him? — or what picture-dealer can 
talk like him? 

Whereas mankind in general are observed to wrap their 
speculative conclusions to the bent of their individual hu- 
mours, his theories are sure to be in diametrical opposition 30 
to his constitution. He is courageous as Charles of Sweden, 
upon instinct; chary of his person, upon principle, as a 
travelling Quaker. — He has been preaching up to me, all 
my Hfe, the doctrine of bowing to the great — the necessity 



72 MY RELATIONS 

of forms, and manner, to a man's getting on in the world. 
He himself never aims at either, that I can discover, — and 
has a spirit, that would stand upright in the presence of the 
Cham of Tartary. It is pleasant to hear him discourse of 
5 patience — extolling it as the truest wisdom — and to see 
him during the last seven minutes that his dinner is getting 
ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more restless 
piece of workmanship than when she moulded this impetuous 
cousin — and Art never turned out a more elaborate orator 

TO than he can display himself to be, upon his favourite topic 
of the advantages of quiet, and contentedness in the state, 
whatever it be, that we are placed in. He is triumphant on 
this theme, when he has you safe in one of those short stages 
that ply for the western road, in a very obstructing manner, 

15 at the foot of John Murray's street — where you get in when 
it is empty, and are expected to wait till the vehicle hath 
completed her just freight — a trying three-quarters of an 
hour to some people. He wonders at your fidgetiness — 
"where could we be better than we are, thus sitting, thus 

20 consultifig V — "prefers, for his part, a state of rest to loco- 
motion," — with an eye all the while upon the coachman 
— till at length, waxing out of all patience, at your want of it, 
he breaks out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow for 
detaining us so long over the time which he had professed, 

25 and declares peremptorily, that " the gentleman in the coach 

is determined to get out if he does not drive on that instant." 

Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a 

sophistry, he is incapable of attending you in any chain of 

arguing. Indeed he makes wild work with logic ; and seems 

30 to jump at most admirable conclusions by some process, not 
at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to this, he hath been 
heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that there exists such 
a faculty at all in man as reason; and wondereth how man 
came first to have a conceit of it — enforcing his negation 



MY RELATIONS 73 

with all the might of reasoning he is master of. He has some 
speculative notions against laughter, and will maintain that 
laughing is not natural to him — when peradventure the next 
moment his lungs shall crow like Chanticleer. He says some 
of the best things in the world — and declareth that wit is his 5 
aversion. It was he who said, upon seeing the Eton boys at 
play in their grounds — What a pity to think, that these fine 
ingenuous lads in a few years will all be changed into frivolous 
Members of Parliament ! 

His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous — and in age 10 
he discovered no symptom of cooling. This is that which I 
admire in him. I hate people who meet Time half-way. I am 
for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. While he 
lives, J. E. will take his swing. — It does me good, as I walk 
towards the street of my daily avocation, on some fine May 15 
morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, 
with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, . 
that indicates some purchase in his eye — a Claude — or a 
Hobbima — for much of his enviable leisure is consumed at 
Christie's, and PhilHps's — or where not, to pick up pictures, 20 
and such gauds. On these occasions he mostly stoppeth me, 
to read a short lecture on the advantage a person like me 
possesses above himself, in having his time occupied with 
business which he must do — assureth me that he often feels 
it hang heavy on his hands — wishes he had fewer holidays — 25 
and goes off — Westward Ho ! — chanting a tune to Pall Mall 
— perfectly convinced that he has convinced me — while I 
proceed in my opposite direction tuneless. 

It is pleasant again to see this Professor of Indifference 
doing the honours of his new purchase, when he has fairly 30 
housed it. You must view it in every light, till he has found 
the best — placing it at this distance, and at that, but always 
suiting the focus of your sight to his own. You must spy 
at it through your fingers, to catch the aerial perspective — 



74 MY RELATIONS 

though you assure him that to you the landscape shows much 
more agreeable without that artifice. Woe be to the luckless 
wight, who does not only not respond to his rapture, but who 
should drop an unseasonable intimation of preferring one of 

5 his anterior bargains to the present ! — The last is always his 
best hit — his "Cynthia of the minute." — Alas! how many 
a mild Madonna have I known to come m — a Raphael ! — 
keep its ascendency for a few brief moons — then, after certain 
intermedial degradations, from the front drawing-room to the 

10 back gallery, thence to the dark parlour, — adopted in turn 
by each of the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions 
of filiation, mildly breaking its fall — consigned to the oblivi- 
ous lumber-room, go out at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain 
Carlo Maratti ! — which things when I beheld — musing upon 

15 the chances and mutabiUties of fate below — hath made me 
to reflect upon the altered condition of great personages, or 
that woful queen of Richard the Second — 

set forth in pomp. 

She came adorned hither like sweet May. 
20 Sent back like Hallowmas or shortest day. 

With great love for you, J. E. hath but a limited sympathy 
with what you feel or do. He lives in a world of his own, 
and makes slender guesses at what passes in your mind. He 
never pierces the marrow of your habits. He will tell an old- 

25 established playgoer, that Mr. Such-a-one, of So-and-so (nam- 
ing one of the theatres) , is a very lively comedian — as a piece 
of news ! He advertised me but the other day of some pleas- 
ant green lanes which he had found out for me, knowing me 
to be a great walker, in my own immediate vicinity — who have 

30 haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years ! — 
He has not much respect for that class of feelings which goes 
by the name of sentimental. He applies the definition of real 
evil to bodily suffering exclusively — and rejecteth all others 



MY RELATIONS 75 

as imaginary. He is affected by the sight or the bare suppo- 
sition of a creature in pain, to a degree which I have never 
witnessed out of womankind. A constitutional acuteness to 
this class of sufferings, may in part account for this. The 
animal tribe in particular he taketh under his especial pro- 5 
tection. A broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure to 
find an advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his client for 
ever. He is the apostle to the brute kind — the never-fail- 
ing friend of those who have none to care for them. The 
contemplation of a lobster boiled, or eels skinned alive, will 10 
wring him so, that "all for pity he could die." It will take 
the savour from his palate, and the rest from his pillow, for 
days and nights. With the intense feeling of Thomas Clark- 
son, he wanted only the steadiness of pursuit, and unity of pur- 
pose, of that "true yoke-fellow with Time," to have effected 15 
as much for the Animal, as he hath done for the Negro Crea- 
tion. But my uncontrollable cousin is but imperfectly formed 
for purposes which demand co-operation. He cannot wait. 
His amelioration-plans must be ripened in a day. For this 
reason he has cut but an equivocal figure in benevolent socie- 20 
ties, and combinations for the alleviation of human sufferings. 
His zeal constantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his 
coadjutors. He thinks of relieving, — while they think of 
debating. He was black-balled out of a society for the Rehef 
of * * * because the fervour of his humanity toiled beyond 25 
the formal apprehension, and creeping processes, of his asso- 
ciates. I shall always consider this distinction as a patent of 
nobiHty in the Elia family ! 

Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile at, 
or upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and all good 30 
manners, and the understanding that should be between kins- 
folk, forbid ! — With all the strangeness of this strangest of the 
Elias — I would not have him in one jot or tittle other than 
he is; neither would I barter or exchange my wild kinsman 



^6 MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 

for the most exact, regular, and every-way consistent kinsman 
breathing. 

In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you some account 

of my cousin Bridget — if you are not already surfeited with 

5 cousins — and take you by the hand, if you are willing to go 

with us, on an excursion which we made a summer or two 

since, in search of more cousins — 

Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. 



XL MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 

Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long 

10 year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the 
period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and 
maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable 
comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find myself in no 
sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the 

15 rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty 
well in our tastes and habits — yet so, as "with a difference." 
We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings — 
as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are 
rather understood, than expressed; and once, upon my dis- 

20 sembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my 
cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. 
We are both great readers in different directions. While I 
am hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage 
in old Burton, or one of his strange contemporaries, she is 

25 abstracted in some modern tale, or adventure, whereof our 
common reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh 
supphes. Narrative teases me. I have little concern in the 
progress of events. She must have a story, — well, ill, or 
indifferently told — so there be life stirring in it, and plenty 

30 of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in 



MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE JJ 

fiction — and almost in real life — have ceased to interest, or 
operate but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and 
opinions — heads with some diverting twist in them — the 
oddities of authorship please me most. My cousin has a 
native disrelish of anything that sounds odd or bizarre. 5 
Nothing goes down with her that is quaint, irregular, or out 
of the road of common sympathy. She " holds Nature more 
clever." I can pardon her blindness to the beautiful obliqui- 
ties of the Religio Medici ; but she must apologize to me for 
certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased 10 
to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear 
favourite of mine, of the last century but one — the thrice 
noble, chaste, and virtuous, — but again somewhat fantastical, 
and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle. 

It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I 15 
could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, 
free-thinkers — leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophies 
and systems ; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their 
opinions. That which was good and venerable to her, when 
she was a child, retains its authority over her mind still. 20 
She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. 

We are both of us incHned to be a Httle too positive ; and 
I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uni- 
formly this — that in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, 
it turns out, that I was in the right, and my cousin in the 25 
wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points; 
upon something proper to be done, or let alone ; whatever 
heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out with, 
I am sure always in the long run, to be brought over to her 
way of thinking. ^o 

I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a 
gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. 
She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading 
in company : at which times she will answer yes or no to a 



78 MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 

question, without fully understanding its purport — which is 
provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dig- 
nity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind 
is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes 
5 desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires 
it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly ; but 
iii matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been 
known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. 

Her education in youth was not much attended to ; and 

10 she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which 
passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled 
early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good 
old EngUsh reading, without much selection or prohibition, 
and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. 

IS Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this 

fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not 

be diminished by it ; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if 

the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. 

In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but 

20 in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do 
not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh 
matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not 
always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions 
of life she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is 

25 excellent to be at play with, or upon a visit ; but best, when 
she goes a journey with you. 

We made an excursion together a few summers since, into 
Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less- 
known relations in that fine corn country. 

30 The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End ; or Mackarel 
End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps 
of Hertfordshire ; a farm-house, — delightfully situated within 
a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember 
having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a 



MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 79 

child under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older 
than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into 
a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might 
share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The 
house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeo- 5 
man, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name 
was Gladman. My grandmother was a Bruton, married to a 
Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing in 
that part of the county, but the Fields are almost extinct. 
More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, 10 
for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the 
other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited 
Mackery End — kindred or strange folk — we were afraid 
almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore. 

By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at 15 
Luton in our way from Saint Alban's, we arrived at the spot 
of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old 
farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my 
recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not 
experienced for many a year. For though / had forgotten 20 
it, we had never forgotten being there together, and we had 
been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory 
on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I 
thought I knew the aspect of a place, which, when present, 
O how unlike it was to that^ which I had conjured up so 25 
many times instead of it ! 

Still the air breathed balmily about it ; the season was in 
the " heart of June," and I could say with the poet, 

But thou, that didst appear so fair 

To fond imagination, 30 

Dost rival in the light of day 

Her delicate creation!^ 

1 Wordsworth. 



80 MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 

Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she 
easily remembered her old acquaintance again — some altered 
features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she 
was ready to disbelieve for joy ; but the scene soon reconfirmed 
5 itself in her affections — and she traversed every outpost of the 
old mansion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the place where 
the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown) 
— with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more 
pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. 

10 But Bridget in some things is behind her years. 

The only thing left was to get into the house — and that 
was a difficulty which to me singly would have been insur- 
mountable : for I am terribly shy in making myself known 
to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than 

15 scruple, winged my cousin in without me; but she soon 
returned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor 
for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the 
Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become 
mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Bru- 

20 tons. Six of them, females, were noted as the handsomest 
young women in the county. But this adopted Bruton, in 
my mind, was better than they all — more comely. She was 
born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected 
in early life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out 

25 to her, chmbing a stile. But the name of kindred, and of 
cousinship, was enough. Those slender ties, that prove shght 
as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind 
faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire. 
In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we 

30 had been born and bred up together ; were familiar, even to 
the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians 
should call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her — 
it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins ! There 



MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 8 1 

was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, 
answering to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would 
have shined in a palace — or so we thought it. We were 
made welcome by husband and wife equally — we, and our 
friend that was with us. — I had almost forgotten him — but 5 
B. F. will not so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he 
shall read this on the far-distant shores where the Kangaroo 
haunts. The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was 
already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after 
an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget with lo 
what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to 
Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) 
to her mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know 
something more of us, at a time when she almost knew noth- 
ing. — With what corresponding kindness we were received by 1 5 
them also — how Bridget's memory, exalted by the occasion, 
warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections of things 
and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own — and to 
the astoundment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing 
that was not a cousin there, — old effaced images of more 20 
than half-forgotten names and circumstances still crowding 
back upon her, as words written in lemon come out upon 
exposure to a friendly warmth, — when I forget all this, 
then may my country cousins forget me ; and Bridget no 
more remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was 25 
her tender charge — as I have been her care in fooHsh man- 
hood since — in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about 
Mackery End, in Hertfordshire. 



S2 IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 



XII. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathizeth 
with all things ; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in anything. 
Those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with 
prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch. — Religio Medici. 

5 That the author of the ReHgio Medici, mounted upon the 
airy stilts of abstraction, conversant about notional and con- 
jectural essences; in whose categories of Being the possible 
took the upper hand of the actual ; should have overlooked 
the impertinent individualities of such poor concretions as 
10 mankind, is not much to be admired. It is rather to 'be 
wondered at, that in the genus of animal he should have 
condescended to distinguish that species at all. For myself 
— earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities, — 

Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, 

15 I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national 
or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no 
indifferent eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to 
me a matter of taste or distaste ; or when once it becomes 
indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer 

20 words, a bundle of prejudices — made up of likings and dis- 
likings — the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies. 
In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am a 
lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I 
cannot feel towards all equally. The more purely-English 

25 word that expresses sympathy will better explain my meaning. 
I can be a friend to a worthy man, who upon another account 
cannot be my mate ox fellow. I cannot like all people alike. -^ 

1 I would be understood as confining myself to the subject of imper- 
fect sympathies. To nations or classes of men there can be no direct 
antipathy. There may be individuals born and constellated so opposite 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 83 

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am 
obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They can- 
not like me — and in truth, I never knew one of that nation 
who attempted to do it. There is something more plain and 
ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. We know one another 5 
at iirst sight. There is an order of imperfect intellects (under 
which mine must be content to rank) which in its constitu- 
tion is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the sort of 
faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than com- 
prehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or 10 
precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. 
Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole 
pieces in it. They are content with fragments and scattered 
pieces of Truth. She presents no full front to them — a 
feature or side-face at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs 15 
and crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pretend to. 
They beat up a little game peradventure — and leave it to . 

to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot hold them, 
I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the story of two 
persons meeting (who never saw one another before in their lives) and 
instantly fighting. 

We by proof find there should be 

'Twixt man and man such an antipathy, 

That though he can show no just reason why 

For any former wrong or injury. 

Can neither find a blemish in his fame. 

Nor aught in face or feature justly blame. 

Can challenge or accuse him of no evil, 

Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. 

The lines are from old Heywood's " Hierarchie of Angels," and he 
subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted 
to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack 
could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy 
which he had taken to the first sight of the King. 

The cause to which that act compell'd him 



Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him. 



84 IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down. 
The hght that hghts them is not steady and polar, but 
mutable and shifting : waxing, and again waning. Their 
conversation is accordingly. They will throw out a random 
5 word in or out of season, and be content to let it pass for 
what it is w^orth. They cannot speak always as if they were 
upon their oath — but must be understood, speaking or writ- 
ing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a 
proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. 

10 They delight to impart their defective discoveries, as they 
arise, without waiting for their full development. They are 
no systematizers, and would but err more by attempting it. 
Their minds, as I said before, are suggestive merely. The 
brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is consti- 

15 tuted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is born in 
panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their 
growth — if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put 
together upon principles of clock-work. You never catch 
his mind in an undress. He never hints or suggests any- 

20 thing, but unlades his stock of ideas in perfect order and 
completeness. He brings his total wealth into company, 
and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. 
He never stoops to catch a glittering something in your pres- 
ence, to share it with you, before he quite knows whether it 

25 be true touch or not. You cannot cry halves to anything that 
he finds. He does not find, but bring. You never witness 
his first apprehension of a thing. His understanding is always 
at its meridian — you never see the first dawn, the early streaks. 
— He has no falterings of self-suspicion. Surmises, guesses, 

30 misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, partial illumi- 
nations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in 
his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls 
upon him. Is he orthodox — he has no doubts. Is he an 
infidel — he has none either. Between the affirmative and 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 85 

the negative there is no border-land with him. You cannot 
hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the 
maze of a probable argument. He always keeps the path. 
You cannot make excursions with him — for, he sets you right. 
His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He 5 
cannot compromise, or understand middle actions. There can 
be but a right and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. 
His affirmations have the sanctity of an oath. You must speak 
upon the square with him. He stops a metaphor like a sus- 
pected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy book!" 10 
— said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to 
give that appellation to John Buncle, — " did I catch rightly 
what you said? I have heard of a man in health, and of a 
healthy state of body, but I do not see how that epithet can 
be properly appHed to a book." Above all, you must beware 15 
of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extin- 
guisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein 
of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of 
a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was show- 
ing off to Mr. . After he had examined it minutely, I 20 

ventured to ask him how he liked my beauty (a foolish name 
it goes by among my friends) — when he very gravely assured 
me, that "he had considerable respect for my character and 
talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but had not given him- 
self much thought about the degree of my personal preten- 25 
sions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem 
much to disconcert him. — Persons of this nation are particu- 
larly fond of affirming a truth — which nobody doubts. They 
do not so properly affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed 
appear to have such a love of truth (as if, Hke virtue, it were 30 
valuable for itself) that all truth becomes equally valuable, 
whether the proposition that contains it be new or old, dis- 
puted, or such as is impossible to become a subject of disputa- 
tion. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, 



S6 IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

where a son of Burns was expected ; and happened to drop 
a silly expression (in my South British way), that I wished it 
were the father instead of the son — when four of them started 
up at once to inform me, that " that was impossible, because 
5 he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, was morp 
than they could conceive. Swift has hit oif this part of their 
character, namely, their love of truth, in his biting way, but 
with an illiberaUty that necessarily confines the passage to the 
margin.^ The tediousness of these people is certainly pro- 

10 voking. I wonder if they ever tire one another ! — In my 
early hfe I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. 
I have sometimes foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his 
countrymen by expressing it. But I have always found that a 
true Scot resents your admiration of his compatriot, even more 

15 than he would your contempt of him. The latter he imputes 
to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the words which 
he uses ; " and the same objection makes it a presumption in 
you to suppose that you can admire him, — Thomson they 
seem to have forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten 

20 nor forgiven for his delineation of Rory and his companion, 
upon their first introduction to our metropolis. — Speak of 
Smollett as a great genius, and they will retort upon you 
Hume's History compared with kts Continuation of it. What 
if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker? 

25 I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are 
a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge 

1 There are some people who think they suflficiently acquit them- 
selves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no conse- 
quence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as happen 
every day ; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots 
than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest 
circumstances of time or place ; which kind of discourse, if it were not 
a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent 
and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable. — 
Hints towards an Essay on Conversation. 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 87 

is in its nonage. They date beyond the pyramids. But I 
should not care to be in habits of famihar intercourse with 
any of that nation. I confess that I have not the nerves 
to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices cHng about me. 
I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries 5 
of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side, — of cloaked 
revenge, dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our 
and their fathers, must, and ought, to affect the blood of the 
children. I cannot believe it can run clear and kindly yet; 
or that a few fine words, such as candour, liberaUty, the hght 10 
of a nineteenth century, can close up the breaches of so deadly 
a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial to me. He is 
least distasteful on 'Change — for the mercantile spirit levels 
all distinctions, as are all beauties in the dark. I boldly con- 
fess I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, 15 
which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endear- 
ments have, to me, something hypocritical and unnatural in 
them. I do not like to see the Church and Synagogue kiss- 
ing and congeeing in awkward postures of an affected civility. 
If they are converted, why do they not come over to us alto- 20 
gether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the hfe of 
it has fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do they 
kick at our cookery? I do not understand these halfcon- 
vertites. Jews christianizing — Christians judaizing — puzzle 
me. I like fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more con- 25 
founding piece of anomaly than a wet Quaker. The spirit 

of the synagogue is essentially separative. B would have 

been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his 
forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature 

meant to be of Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong 3c 

in him, in spite of his proselytism. He cannot conquer the 
Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when he sings, " The Children 
of Israel passed through the Red Sea ! " The auditors, for 
the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides over our 



SS IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him. B has a 

strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is con- 
firmed by his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence 
is sense. He sings with understanding, as Kemble delivered 
5 dialogue. He would sing the Commandments, and give an 
appropriate character to each prohibition. His nation, in 
general, have not over-sensible countenances. How should 
they? — but you seldom see a silly expression among them. 
Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I 

10 never heard of an idiot being born among them. — Some 
admire the Jewish female-physiognomy. I admire it — but 
with trembling. Jael had those full dark inscrutable eyes. 

In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong 
traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards 

15 some of these faces — or rather masks — that have looked out 
kindly upon one in casual encounters in the streets and high- 
ways. I love what Fuller beautifully calls — these "images 
of God cut in ebony." But I should not like to associate 
with them, to share my meals and my good-nights with them 

20 — because they are black. 

I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the 
Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the day 
when I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruffled 
or disturbed by any occurrence, the sight, or quiet voice of a 

25 Quaker, acts upon me as a ventilator, lightening the air, and 
taking off a load from the bosom. But I cannot like the Quakers 
(as Desdemona would say) " to live with them." I am all over 
sophisticated — with humours, fancies, craving hourly sympathy. 
I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, 

30 ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their simpler 
taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive ban- 
quet. My appetities are too high for the salads which (according 
to Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited 
To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 



IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 89 

The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to 
return to a question put to them may be explained, I think, 
without the vulgar assumption, that they are more given to 
evasion and equivocating than other people. They naturally 
look to their words more carefully, and are more cautious of 5 
committing themselves. They have a peculiar character to 
keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their 
veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. 
The custom of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified 
as it is by all religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) 10 
to introduce into the laxer sort of minds the notion of two 
kinds of truth — the one applicable to the solemn affairs of 
justice, and the other to the common proceedings of daily 
intercourse. As truth bound upon the conscience by an oath 
can be but truth, so in the common affirmations of the shop 15 
and the market-place a latitude is expected and conceded 
upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Something 
less than truth satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, 
" You do not expect me to speak as if I were upon my oath." 
Hence a great deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, short 20 
of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conversation ; and a kind 
of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, where clergy- truth — 
oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, is not required. 
A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple affirma- 
tion being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without 25 
any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is 
to use upon the most indifferent topics of Hfe. He looks to 
them, naturally, with more severity. You can have of him no 
more than his word. He knows, if he is caught tripping in a 
casual expression, he forfeits, for himself, at least, his claim 30 
to the invidious exemption. He knows that his syllables are 
weighed — and how far a consciousness of this particular 
watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to 
produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by 



go IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

honest means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, 
by a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon 
this occasion. The admirable presence of mind, which is 
notorious in Quakers upon all contingencies, might be traced 

5 to this imposed self-watchfulness — if it did not seem rather 
an humble and secular scion of that old stock of religious con- 
stancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive Friends, 
or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of judge 
or accuser, under trials and racking examinations. " You will 

10 never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till 
midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had 
been putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. " Thereafter 
as the answers may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonish- 
ing composure of this people is sometimes ludicrously displayed 

15 in lighter instances. — I was travelling in a stage-coach with 
three male Quakers, buttoned up in the straightest non-con- 
formity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where 
a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. 
My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way 

20 took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest 
of my companions discovered that she had charged for both 
meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous 
and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part 
of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady 

25 seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with 
his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their 
m-oney, and formally tendered it — so much for tea — I, in 
humble imitation, tendering mine — for the supper which I 
had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they 

30 all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and 
marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, 
with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do 
better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable 
personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 9I 

drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indis- 
tinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became after a time 
inaudible — and now my conscience, which the whimsical 
scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give some 
twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would 5 
be offered by these serious people for the seeming injustice 
of their conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was 
dropped on the subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. 
At length the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of 
his next neighbour, " Hast thee heard how indigos go at the 10 
India House? "and the question operated as a soporific on 
my moral feeling as far as Exeter. 



XIII. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER 
TEMPLE 

I WAS born, and passed the first seven years of my life in 
the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, 
its river, I had almost said — for in those young years, what 15 
was this king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our 
pleasant places? these are of my oldest recollections. I 
repeat, to this day, no verses to myself more frequently, or 
with kindher emotion, than those of Spenser, where he speaks 
of this spot. 20 

There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, 

The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride, 

Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, 

There whylome wont the Templer knights to bide, 

Till they decayed through pride. 25 

Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What 
a transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time 
•—the passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet Street, by 



92 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 

unexpected avenues, into its magnificent ample squares, its 
classic green recesses ! What a cheerful, liberal look hath 
that portion of it, which, from three sides, overlooks the 
greater garden : that goodly pile 

5 Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, 

confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more fan- 
tastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the cheerful 
Crown-office Row (place of my kindly engendure), right oppo- 
site the stately stream, which washes the garden-foot with her 

ID yet scarcely trade-polluted waters, and seems but just weaned 
from her Twickenham Naiades ! a man would give something 
to have been born in such- places. What a collegiate aspect 
has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the fountain plays, which 
I have made to rise and fall, how many times ! to the astound- 

15 ment of the young urchins, my contemporaries, who, not being 
able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted 
to hail the wondrous work as magic ! ~ What an antique air had 
the now almost effaced sun-dials, with their moral inscriptions, 
seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to 

20 take their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, 
holding correspondence with the fountain of light ! How 
would the dark hne steal imperceptibly on, watched by the 
eye of childhood, eager to detect its movement, never catched, 
nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep ! 

25 Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand 

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived ! 

What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowel- 
ments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of commu- 
nication, compared with the simple altar-like structure, and 
30 silent heart-language of the old dial ! It stood as the garden 
god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere van- 
ished? If its business-use be superseded by more elaborate 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 93 

inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for 
its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures 
not protracted after sunset, of temperance, and good hours. 
It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. 
Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the 5 
measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, 
for the birds to apportion their silver warbhngs by, for flocks 
to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd " carved it out 
quaintly in the sun ; " and, turning philosopher by the very 
occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tomb- 10 
stones. It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by 
Marvell, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a dial out 
of herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses a little higher up, 
for they are full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. 
They will not come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains 15 
and sun-dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes : 

What wonderous life is this I lead ! 

Ripe apples drop about my head. 

The luscious clusters of the vine 

Upon my mouth do crush their wine. 20 

The nectarine, and curious peach, 

Into my hands themselves do reach. 

Stumbling on melons, as I pass, 

Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less 25 

Withdraws into its happiness ; 

The mind, that ocean, where each kind 

Does straight its own resemblance find ; 

Yet it creates, transcending these. 

Far other worlds and other seas ; 30 

Annihilating all that's made 

To a green thought in a green shade. 

Here at the fountain's shding foot, 

Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, 

Casting the body's vest aside, 35 



94 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 

My soul into the boughs does glide : 
There like a bird it sits and sings, 
Then whets and claps its silver wings ; 
And, till prepared for longer flight, 
5 Waves in its plumes the various light. 

How well the skilful gardener drew, 
Of flowers and herbs, this dial new ! 
Where, from above the milder sun 
Does through a fragrant zodiac run ; 
ID And, as it works, the industrious bee 

Computes its time as well as we. 
How could such sweet and wholesome hours 
Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers .^^ 

The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like manner, 

15 fast vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or bricked over. 
Yet, where one is left, as in that little green nook behind the 
South-Sea House, what a freshness it gives to the dreary pile ! 
Four little winged marble boys used to play their virgin fancies, 
spouting out ever fresh streams from their innocent wanton lips, 

20 in the square of Lincoln's Inn, when I was no bigger than they 
were figured. They are gone, and the spring choked up. The 
fashion, they tell me, is gone by, and these things are esteemed 
childish. Why not then gratify children, by letting them stand ? 
Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They are awakening 

25 images to them at least. Why must everything smack of man, 
and mannish ? Is the world all grown up ? Is childhood dead ? 
Or is there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some 
of the child's heart left, to respond to its earhest enchantments? 
The figures were grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged living figures, 

30 that still flitter and chatter about that area, less Gothic in 
appearance ? or is the splutter of their hot rhetoric one half 
so refreshing and innocent as the little cool playful streams 
those exploded cherubs uttered? 

1 From a copy of verses entitled The Garden. 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 95 

They have lately gothicized the entrance to the Inner 
Temple-hall, and the library front, to assimilate them, I 
suppose, to the body of the hall, which they do not at all 
resemble. What is become of the winged horse that stood 
over the former? a stately arms ! and who has removed those 5 
frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianized the end of the Paper- 
buildings ? — my first hint of allegory ! They must account 
to me for these things, which I miss so greatly. 

The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the 
parade ; but the traces are passed away of the footsteps 10 
which made its pavement awful ! It is become common 
and profane. The old benchers had it almost sacred to 
themselves, in the fore part of the day at least. They 
might not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted 
the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you 15 
passed them. We walk on even terms with their successors. 

The roguish eye of J 11, ever ready to be delivered of a 

jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a repartee with it. But 
what insolent familiar durst have mated Thomas Coventry ? — 
whose person was a quadrate, his step massy and elephantine, 20 
his face square as the lion's, his gait peremptory and path-keep- 
ing, indivertible from his way as a moving column, the scare- 
crow of his inferiors, the brow-beater of equals and superiors, . 
who made a solitude of children wherever he came, for they 
fled his insufferable presence, as they would have shunned an 25 
EHsha bear. His growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he 
spake to them in mirth or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being, 
indeed, of all, the most repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, 
aggravating the natural terrors of his speech, broke from each 
majestic nostril, darkening the air. He took it, not by pinches, 30 
but a palmful at once, diving for it under the mighty flaps of his 
old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat red and angry, 
his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by adjuncts, 
with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. 



g6 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 

By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen ; the 
pensive gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and had 
nothing but that and their benchership in common. In poli- 
tics Salt was a Whig, and Coventry a staunch Tory. Many a 
5 sarcastic growl did the latter cast out — for Coventry had a 
rough spinous humour — at the pohtical confederates of his 
associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom of the latter 
like cannon-balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel Salt. 
S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of 

10 excellent discernment in the chamber practice of the law. I 
suspect his knowledge did not amount to much. When a 
case of difficult disposition of money, testamentary or other- 
wise, came before him, he ordinarily handed it over with a few 
instructions to his man Lovel, who was a quick little fellow, 

15 and would despatch it out of hand by the light of natural 
understanding, of which he had an uncommon share. It was 
incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere trick 
of gravity. He was a shy man ; a child might pose him in a 
minute — indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet 

20 men would give him credit for vast application in spite of him- 
self. He was not to be trusted with himself with impunity. 
He never dressed for a dinner-party but he forgot his sword 
— they wore swords then — or some other necessary part of 
his equipage. Lovel had his eye upon him on all these occa- 

25 sions, and ordinarily gave him his cue. If there was anything 
which he could speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it. — 
He was to dine at a relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy 
on the day of her execution ; and L., who had a wary fore- 
sight of his probable hallucinations, before he set out, schooled 

30 him with great anxiety not in any possible manner to allude 
to her story that day. S. promised faithfully to observe the 
injunction. He had not been seated in the parlour, where 
the company was expecting the dinner summons, four min- 
utes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got up, 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 9/ 

looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles — an ordi- 
nary motion with him — observed, " it was a gloomy day," 
and added, " Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time, I sup- 
pose." Instances of this sort were perpetual. Yet S. was 
thought by some of the greatest men of his time a fit person 5 
to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining to the law, 
but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct 
— from force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He 
had the same good fortune among the feipale world, — was a 
known toast with the ladies, and one or two are said to have 10 
died for love of him — I suppose, because he never trifled or 
talked gallantry with them, or paid them, indeed, hardly com- 
mon attentions. He had a fine face and person, but wanted, 
methought, the spirit that should have shown them off with 
advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre. — Not so, 15 

thought Susan P ; who, at the advanced age of sixty, was 

seen, in the cold evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the 

pavement of B d Row with tears that fell in drops which 

might be heard, because her friend had died that day — he, 
whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for the last 20 
forty years — a passion which years could not extinguish or 
abate ; nor the long resolved, yet gently enforced, puttings 
off of unrelenting bachelorhood dissuade from its cherished 

purpose. Mild Susan P , thou hast now thy friend in 

heaven ! 25 

Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of that 
name. He passed his youth in contracted circumstances, 
which gave him early those parsimonious habits which in after- 
life never forsook him ; so that, with one windfall or another, 
about the time I knew him he was master of four or five hun- 30 
dred thousand pounds ; nor did he look, or walk, worth a moi- 
dore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite the pump in 
Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street. J., the counsel, is doing self- 
imposed penance in it, for what reason I divine not, at this 



98 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 

day. C. had an agreeable seat at North Cray, where he sel- 
dom spent above a day or two at a time in the summer ; but 
preferred, during the hot months, standing at his window in 
this damp, close, well-like mansion, to watch, as he said, " the 
5 maids drawing water all day long." I suspect he had his 
within-door reasons for the preference. Hie currus et arnia 
fuere. He might think his treasures more safe. His house 
had the aspect of a strong box. C. was a close hunks — a 
hoarder rather than a miser — or, if a miser, none of the mad 

10 Elwes breed, who have brought discredit upon a character, 
which cannot exist without certain admirable points of steadi- 
ness and unity of purpose. One may hate a true miser, but 
cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking care of 
the pence, he is often enabled to part with the pounds, upon 

15 a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an 
immeasurable distance behind. C. gave away thirty thousand 
pounds at once in his lifetime to a blind charity. His house- 
keeping was severely looked after, but he kept the table of a 
gentleman. He would know who came in and who went out 

20 of his house, but his kitchen chimney was never suffered to 
freeze. 

Salt was his opposite in this, as in all — never knew what 
he was worth in the world ; and having but a competency for 
his rank, which his indolent habits were little calculated to 

25 improve, might have suffered severely if he had not had hon- 
est people about him. Lovel took care of everything. He 
was at once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, his friend, 
his "flapper," his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer. He 
did nothing without consulting Lovel, or failed in anything 

30 without expecting and fearing his admonishing. ^He put him- 
self almost too much in his hands, had they not been the pur- 
est in the world. He resigned his title almost to respect as a 
master, if L. could ever have forgotten for a moment that he 
was a servant. 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 99 

I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and 
losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and " would strike." 
In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequali- 
ties, or calculated the number of his opponents. He once 
wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of quahty that had 5 
drawn upon him ; and pommelled him severely with the hilt 
of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female — an 
occasion upon which no odds against him could have pre- 
vented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day 
bare-headed to the same person, modestly to excuse his inter- 10 
ference — for L. never forgot rank, where something better 
was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow breath- 
ing, had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly 
to resemble (I have a portrait of him which confirms it), pos- 
sessed a fine turn for humorous poetry — next to Swift and 15 
Prior -7- moulded heads in clay or plaster of Paris to admira- 
tion, by the dint of natural genius merely ; turned cribbage- 
boards, and such small cabinet toys, to perfection ; took a 
hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facihty ; made punch bet- 
ter than any man of his degree in England ; had the merriest 20 
quips and conceits, and was altogether as brimful of rogueries 
and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of 
the angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest com- 
panion as Mr. Izaak Walton would have chosen to go a-fish- 
ing with. I saw him in his old age and the decay of his 25 
faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad stage of human weak- 
ness — "a remnant most forlorn of what he was," — yet even 
then his eye would Hght up upon the mention of his favourite 
Garrick. He was greatest, he would say, in Bayes — "was 
upon the stage nearly throughout the whole performance, and 30 
as busy as a bee." At intervals, too, he would speak of his 
former life, and how he came up a little boy from Lincoln to 
go to service, and how his mother cried at parting with him, 
and how he returned, after some few years' absence, in his 



lOO THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 

smart new livery to see her, and she blessed herself at the change, 
and could hardly be brought to believe that it was " her own 
bairn." And then, the excitement subsiding, he would weep, 
till I have wished that sad second-childhood might have a 
5 mother still to lay its head upon her lap. But the common 
mother of us all in no long time after received him gently 
into hers. 

With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the terrace, 
most commonly Peter Pierson would join, to make up a third. 

10 They did not walk linked arm in arm in those days — " as now 
our stout triumvirs sweep the streets," — but generally with 
both hands folded behind them for state, or with one at least 
behind, the other carrying a cane. P. was a benevolent, but 
not a prepossessing man. He had that in his face which you 

15 could not term unhappiness; it rather impUed an incapacity 
of being happy. His cheeks were colourless, even to white- 
ness. His look was uninviting, resembling (but without his 
sourness) that of our great philanthropist. I know that he did 
good acts, but I could never make out what he was. Con- 

20 temporary with these, but subordinate, was Daines Barrington 
— another oddity — he walked burly and square — in imita- 
tion, I think, of Coventry — howbeit he attained not to the 
dignity of his prototype. Nevertheless, he did pretty well, 
upon the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, and hav- 

25 ing a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's treas- 
urership came to be audited, the following singular charge 
was unanimously disallowed by the bench : " Item, disbursed 
Mr. Allen, the gardener, twenty shillings, for stuff to poison 
the sparrows by my orders." Next to him was old Barton — a 

30 jolly negation, who took upon him the ordering of the bills of 
fare for the parliament chamber, where the benchers dine — 
answering to the combination rooms at college — much to the 
easement of his less epicurean brethren. I know nothing more 
of him. — .Then Read, and Twopeny — Read, good-humoured 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE lOI 

and personable — Twopeny, good-humoured, but thin, and 
felicitous in jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry 
was attenuated and fleeting. Many must remember him (for 
he was rather of later date) and his singular gait, which was 
performed by three steps and a jump regularly succeeding. 5 
The steps were Kttle efforts, Uke that of a child beginning to 
walk ; the jump comparatively vigorous, as a foot to an inch. 
Where he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I could 
never discover. It was neither graceful in itself, nor seemed 
to answer the purpose any better than common walking. The 10 
extreme tenuity of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. It 
was a trial of poising. Twopeny would often rally him upon 
his leanness, and hail him as Brother Lusty ; but W. had no 
relish of a joke. His features were spiteful. I have heard 
that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely, when anything 15 
had offended him. Jackson — omniscient Jackson he was 
called — was of this period. He had the reputation of pos- 
sessing more multifarious knowledge than any man of his time. 
He was the Friar Bacon of the less Hterate portion of the 
Temple. I remember a pleasant passage, of the cook apply- 20 
ing to him, with much formaUty of apology, for instructions 
how to write down edge bone of beef in his bill Of commons. 
He was supposed to know, if any man in the world did. He 
decided the orthography to be — as I have given it — fortify- 
ing his authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed 25 
the manciple (for the time) learned and happy. Some do 
spell it yet perversely, aitch bone, from a fanciful resemblance 
between its shape, and that of the aspirate so denominated. 
I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron hand — but he 
was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some 30 
accident, and suppHed it with a grappHng hook, which he 
wielded with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the substitute, 
before I was old enough to reason whether it were artificial 
or not. I remember the astonishment it raised in me. He 



I02 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 

was a blustering, loud-talking person; and I reconciled the 
phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of power — somewhat 
like the horns in the forehead of Michael Angelo's Moses. 
Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till very lately) in the cos- 
5 tume of the reign of George the Second, closes my imperfect 
recollections of the old benchers of the Inner Temple. 

Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like of 
you exist, why exist they no more for me? Ye inexplicable, 
half-understood appearances, why comes in reason to tear away 

lo the preternatural mist, bright or gloomy, that enshrouded you? 
Why make ye so sorry a figure in my relation, who made up 
to me — to my childish eyes — the mythology of the Temple ? 
In those days I saw Gods, as "old men covered with a mantle," 
walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry 

15 perish, — extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legend- 
ary fabling, — in the heart of childhood, there will, for ever, 
spring up a well of innocent or wholesome superstition — the 
seeds of exaggeration will be busy there, and vital — from every- 
day forms educing the unknown and the uncommon. In that 

20 Httle Goshen there will be light, when the grown world floun- 
ders about in the darkness of sense and materiality. While 
childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood, shall be left, 
imagination shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly 
the earth. 

25 P.S. — I have done injustice to the soft shade of Samuel Salt. 
See what it is to trust to imperfect memory, and the erring 
notices of childhood ! Yet I protest I always thought that he 
had been a bachelor ! This gentleman, R. N. informs me, 
married young, and losing his lady in child-bed, within the first 

30 year of their union, fell into a deep melancholy, from the effects 
of which, probably, he never thoroughly recovered. In what 
a new Hght does this place his rejection (O call it by a gentler 
name ! ) of mild Susan P , unravelling into beauty certain 



THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE IO3 

peculiarities of this very shy and retiring character ! — Hence- 
forth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for true records ! 
They are, in truth, but shadows of fact — verisimilitudes, not 
verities — or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts 
of history. He is no such honest chronicler as R. N., and would 5 
have done better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman, 
before he sent these incondite reminiscences to press. But 
the worthy sub- treasurer — who respects his old and his new 
masters — would but have been puzzled at the indecorous liber- 
ties of Elia. The good man wots not, peradventure, of the 10 
licence which Magazines have arrived at in this plain-speaking 
age, or hardly dreams of their existence beyond the Gentle- 
man'' s — his furthest monthly excursions in this nature having 
been long confined to the holy ground of honest Urban^s obit- 
uary. May it be long before his own name shall help to swell 15 
those columns of unenvied flattery ! — Meantime, O ye New 
Benchers of the Inner Temple, cherish him kindly, for he is 
himself the kindliest of human creatures. Should infirmities 
overtake him — he is yet in green and vigorous senility — 
make allowances for them, remembering that " ye yourselves 20 
are old." So may the Winged Horse, your ancient badge and 
cognizance, still flourish ! so may future Hookers and Seldens 
illustrate your church and chambers ! so may the sparrows, in 
default of more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about 
your walks ! so may the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery- 25 
maid, who, by leave, airs her playful charge in your stately 
gardens, drop her prettiest blushing curtsey as ye pass, reduc- 
tive of juvenescent emotion ! so may the younkers of this 
generation eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with the 
same superstitious veneration, with which the child Elia gazed 30 
on the Old Worthies that solemnized the parade before ye ! 



104 WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 



XIV. WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS. 

We are too hasty when we set doAvn our ancestors in the gross 
for fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) 
involved in their creed of witchcraft. In the relations of this 
visible world we find them to have been as rational, and shrewd 

5 to detect an historic anomaly, as ourselves. But when once 
the invisible world was supposed to be opened, and the lawless 
agency of bad spirits assumed, what measures of probability, of 
decency, of fitness, or proportion — of that which distinguishes 
the likely from the palpable absurd — could they have to guide 

lo them in the rejection or admission of any particular testimony? 
— That maidens pined away, wasting inwardly as their waxen 
images consumed before a fire — that corn was lodged, and 
cattle lamed — that whirlwinds uptore in diabolic revelry the 
oaks of the forest — or that spits and kettles only danced a 

15 fearful- innocent vagary about some rustic's kitchen when no 
wind was stirring — were all equally probable where no law of 
. agency was understood. That the prince of the powers of dark- 
ness, passing by the flower and pomp of the earth, should lay 
preposterous siege to the weak fantasy of indigent eld — has 

20 neither likelihood nor unlikelihood a priori to us, who have 
no measure to guess at his policy, or standard to estimate 
what rate those anile souls may fetch in the devil's market. 
Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolized by a goat, 
was it to be wondered at so much, that he should come 

25 sometimes in that body, and assert his metaphor. — That 
the intercourse was opened at all between both worlds was 
perhaps the mistake — but that once assumed, I see no 
reason for disbelieving one attested story of this nature more 
than another on the score of absurdity. There is no law 

30 to judge of the lawless, or canon by which a dream may be 
criticized. 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS IO5 

I have sometimes thought that I could not have existed in 
the days of received witchcraft ; that I could not have slept 
in a village where one of those reputed hags dwelt. Our 
ancestors were bolder or more obtuse. Amidst the universal 
belief that these wretches were in league with the author of 5 
all evil, holding hell tributary to their muttering, no simple 
Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupled issuing, or silly 
Headborough serving, a warrant upon them — as if they should 
subpoena Satan ! — Prospero in his boat, with his books and 
wand about him, suffers himself to be conveyed away at the 10 
mercy of his enemies to an unknown island. He might have 
raised a storm or two, we think, on the passage. His acquies- 
cence is an exact analogy to the non-resistance of witches to 
the constituted powers. — What stops the Fiend in Spenser 
from tearing Guyon to pieces — or who had made it a condi- 15 
tion of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the glorious 
bait — we have no guess. We do not know the laws of that 
country. 

From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches 
and witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, sup- 20 
plied me with good store. But I shall mention the accident 
which directed my curiosity originally into this channel. In 
my father's book-closet, the History of the Bible, by Stack- 
house, occupied a distinguished station. The pictures with 
which it abounds — one of the ark, in particular, and another 25 
of Solomon's temple, delineated with all the fidelity of ocular 
admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the spot — 
attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of 
the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never 
seen. We shall come to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two 30 
huge tomes — and there was a pleasure in removing folios of 
that magnitude, which, with infinite straining, was as much as 
I could manage from the situation which they occupied upon 
an upper shelf. I have not met with the work from that time 



I06 WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 

to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testament stories, 
orderly set down, with the objection appended to each story, 
and the solutmi of the objection regularly tacked to that. 
The objediofi was a summary of whatever difficulties had been 
5 opposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness 
of ancient or modern infidehty, drawn up with an almost com- 
plimentary excess of candour. The solution was brief, modest, 
and satisfactory. The bane and antidote were both before 
you. To doubts so put, and so quashed, there seemed to be 

10 an end for ever. The dragon lay dead, for the foot of the 
veriest babe to trample on. But — Hke as was rather feared 
than reahzed from that slain monster in Spenser — from the 
womb of those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, 
exceeding the prowess of so tender a Saint George as myself 

15 to vanquish. The habit of expecting objections to every pas- 
sage, set me upon starting more objections, for the glory of 
finding a solution of my own for them. I became staggered 
and perplexed, a sceptic in long-coats. The pretty Bible 
stories which I had read, or heard read in church, lost their 

20 purity and sincerity of impression, and were turned into so 
many historic or chronologic theses to be defended against 
whatever impugners. I was not to disbelieve them, but — 
the next thing to that — I was to be quite sure that some 
one or other would or had disbelieved them. Next to mak- 

25 ing a child an infidel, is the letting him know that there are 
infidels at all. Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's 
strength. O, how ugly sound scriptural doubts from the mouth 
of a babe and a suckling ! — I should have lost myself in these 
mazes, and have pined away, I think, with such unfit sustenance 

30 as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of ill-fortune, 
which about this time befell me. Turning over the picture of 
the ark with too much haste, I unhappily made a breach in 
its ingenious fabric — driving my inconsiderate fingers right 
through the two larger quadrupeds — the elephant and the 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS lO/ 

camel — that stare (as well they might) out of the two last 
windows next the steerage in that unique piece of naval archi- 
tecture. Stackhouse was henceforth locked up, and became 
an interdicted treasure. With the book, the objections and 
solutions gradually cleared out of my head, and have seldom 5 
returned since in any force to trouble me. — But there was 
one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which 
no lock or bar could shut out, and which was destined to try 
my childish nerves rather more seriously. — That detestable 
picture ! 10 

I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night-time 
solitude, and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings I endured 
in this nature would justify the expression. I never laid my 
head on my pillow, I suppose, from the fourth to the seventh 
or eighth year of my life — so far as memory serves in things so 15 
long ago — without an assurance, which realized its own proph- 
ecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be old Stackhouse then 
acquitted in part, if I say, that to his picture of the Witch rais- 
ing up Samuel — (O that old man covered with a mantle !) I 
owe — not my midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy — but 20 
the shape and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed 
up for me a hag that nightly sate upon my pillow — a sure bed- 
fellow, when my aunt or my maid was far from me. All day 
long, while the book was permitted me, I dreamed waking over 
his delineation, and at night (if I may use so bold an expres- 25 
sion) awoke into sleep, and found the vision true. I durst not, 
even in the daylight, once enter the chamber where I slept, 
without my face turned to the window, aversely from the bed 
where my witch-ridden pillow was. — Parents do not know what 
they do when they leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in 30 
the dark. The feeling about for a friendly arm — the hoping 
for a familiar voice — when they wake screaming — and find 
none to soothe them — what a terrible shaking it is to their 
poor nerves ! The keeping them up till midnight, through 



I08 WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 

candle-light and the unwholesome hours, as they are called, 
— would, I am satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the 
better caution. — That detestable picture, as I have said, gave 
the fashion to my dreams — if dreams they were — for the scene 
5 of them was invariably the room in which I lay. Had I never 
met with the picture, the fears would have come self-pictured 
in some shape or other — 

Headless bear, blackman, or ape, 

but, as it was, my imaginations took that form. — It is not 

lo book, or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create 
these terrors in children. They can at most but give them 
a direction. Dear httle T. H., who of all children has been 
brought up with the most scrupulous exclusion of every taint 
of superstition — who was never allowed to hear of goblin or 

15 apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad men, or to read or hear 
of any distressing story — finds all this world of fear, from which 
he has been so rigidly excluded ab extra ^ in his own " thick- 
coming fancies ; " and from his little midnight pillow, this nurse- 
child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, 

20 in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer 
are tranquillity. 

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimseras dire — stories of Celseno 
and the Harpies — may reproduce themselves in the brain of 
superstition — but they were there before. They are tran- 

25 scripts, types — the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How 
else should the recital of that, which we know in a waking sense 
to be false, come to affect us at all? — or 

Names, whose sense we see not, 

Fray us with things that be not? 

30 Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, 
considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us 
bodily injury? — O, least of all ! These terrors are of older 



WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS I09 

standing. They date beyond body — or, without the body, they 
would have been the same. All the cruel, tormenting, defined 
devils in Dante — tearing, mangling, choking, stifling, scorching 
demons — are they one-half so fearful to the spirit of a man, 
as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied following him — 5 

Like one that on a lonesome road 

Doth walk in fear and dread. 

And having once turn'd round, walks on, 

And turns no more his head ; 

Because he knows a frightful fiend 10 

Doth close behind him tread.i 

That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual — 
that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth 
— that it predominates in the period of sinless infancy — are 
difiiculties, the solution of which might afford some probable 15 
insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least 
into the shadow-land of pre-existence. 

My night fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I confess 
an occasional nightmare ; but I do not, as in early youth, keep 
a stud of them. Fiendish faces, with the extinguished taper, 20 
will come and look at me ; but I know them for mockeries, even 
while I cannot elude their presence, and I fight and grapple 
with them. For the credit of my imagination, I am almost 
ashamed to say how tame and prosaic my dreams are grown. 
They are never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of 25 
architecture and of buildings — cities abroad, which I have 
never seen, and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed, 
for the seeming length of a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, 
Paris, Lisbon — their churches, palaces, squares, market-places, 
shops, suburbs, ruins, with an inexpressible sense of delight — 30 
a map-like distinctness of trace — and a daylight vividness of 
vision, that was all but being awake. — I have formerly travelled 

1 Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 



no WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 

among the Westmoreland fells — my highest Alps, — but they 
are objects too mighty for the grasp of my dreaming recogni- 
tion ; and I have again and again awoke with ineffectual strug- 
gles of the inner eye, to make out a shape, in any way whatever, 
5 of Helvellyn. Methought I was in that country, but the moun- 
tains were gone. The poverty of my dreams mortifies me. 
There is Coleridge, at his will can conjure up icy domes, and 
pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, and Abyssinian maids, and 
songs of Abara, and caverns, 

10 Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, 

to solace his night solitudes — when I cannot muster a fiddle. 
Barry Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids gambolling before 
him in nocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons born to Neptune 
— when my stretch of imaginative activity can hardly, in the 

15 night season, raise up the ghost of a fish- wife. To set my fail- 
ures in somewhat a mortifying hght — it was after reading the 
noble Dream of this poet, that my fancy ran strong upon these 
marine spectra ; and the poor plastic power, such as it is, within 
me set to work, to humour my folly in a sort of dream that very 

20 night. Methought I was upon the ocean billows at some sea 
nuptials, riding and mounted high, with the customary train 
sounding their conchs before me (I myself, you may be sure, 
the leadifig god), and jollily we went careering over the main, 
till just where Ino Leucothea should have greeted me (I think 

25 it was Ino) with a white embrace, the billows gradually subsid- 
ing, fell from a sea-roughness to a sea-calm, and thence to a 
river-motion, and that river (as happens in the familiarization 
of dreams) was no other than the gentle Thames, which landed 
me, in the wafture of a placid wave or two, alone, safe and 

30 inglorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambeth Palace. 

The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might furnish 
no whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical faculty resi- 
dent in the same soul waking. An old gentleman, a friend of 



GRACE BEFORE MEAT • III 

mine, and a humourist, used to carry this notion so far, that 
when he saw any striphng of his acquaintance ambitious of 
becoming a poet, his first question would be, — " Young man, 
what sort of dreams have you? " I have so much faith in my 
old friend's theory, that when I feel that idle vein returning 
upon me, I presently subside into my proper element of prose, 
remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious inland 
landing. 



XV. GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin 
in the early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, lo 
when dinners were precarious things, and a full meal was some- 
thing more than a common blessing; when a bellyful was a 
windfall, and looked like a special providence. In the shouts 
and triumphal songs with which, after a season of sharp absti- 
nence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's flesh would naturally 15 
be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern 
grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the 
blessing of food — the act of eating — should have had a par- 
ticular expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from 
that implied and silent gratitude with which we are expected 20 
to enter upon the enjoyment of the many other various gifts 
and good things of existence. 

I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other 
occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want 
a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight 25 
ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why 
have we none for books, those spiritual repasts — a grace before 
Milton — a grace before Shakespeare — a devotional exercise 
proper to be said before reading the Faerie Queene ? — but, 
the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the solitary 30 
ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to 



112 GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so 
called ; commending my new scheme for extension to a niche 
in the grand philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part 
heretical, liturgy, now compiling by my friend Homo Humanus, 
5 for the use of a certain snug congregation of Utopian Rabe- 
laesian Christians, no matter where assembled. 

The form then of the benediction before eating has its 
beauty at a poor man's table, or at the simple and unpro- 
vocative repast of children. It is here that the grace becomes 

10 exceedingly graceful. The indigent man, who hardly knows 
whether he shall have a meal the next day or not, sits down 
to his fare with a present sense of the blessing, which can be 
but feebly acted by the rich, into whose minds the conception 
of wanting a dinner could never, but by some extreme theory, 

15 have entered. The proper end of food — the animal suste- 
nance — is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's 
bread is his daily bread, Hterally his bread for the day. Their 
courses are perennial. 

Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by 

20 the grace. That which is least stimulative to appetite, leaves 
the mind most free for foreign considerations. A man may 
feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton 
with turnips, and have leisure to reflect upon the ordinance 
and institution of eating ; when he shall confess a perturbation 

25 of mind, inconsistent with the purposes of the grace, at the 
presence of venison or turtle. When I have sate (a rarus 
hospes) at rich men's tables, with the savoury soup and messes 
steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips of the guests 
with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the introduc- 

30 tion of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous 
orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious 
sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises 
from a mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out 
the gentle flame of devotion. The incense which rises round 



GRACE BEFORE MEAT II3 

is pagan, and the belly-god intercepts it for his own. The 
very excess of the provision beyond the needs, takes away all 
sense of proportion between the end and means. The giver 
is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the injustice of 
returning thanks — for what? — for having too much, while 5 
so many starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss. 

I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously 
perhaps, by the good man who says the grace. I have seen 
it in clergymen and others — a sort of shame — a sense of 
the co-presence of circumstances which unhallow the blessing. 10 
After a devotional tone put on for a few seconds, how rapidly 
the speaker will fall into his common voice, helping himself 
or his neighbour, as if to get rid of some uneasy sensation of 
hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was 
not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he 15 
felt in his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and 
the viands before him with the exercise of a calm and rational 
gratitude. 

I hear somebody exclaim, — Would you have Christians sit 
down at table, like hogs to their troughs, without remembering 20 
the Giver ? — no — I would have them sit down as Christians, 
remembering the Giver, and less like hogs. Or if their appe- 
tites must run riot, and they must pamper themselves with 
delicacies for which east and west are ransacked, I would have 
them postpone their benediction to a fitter season, when appe- 25 
tite is laid ; when the still small voice can be heard, and the 
reason of the grace returns — with temperate diet and restricted 
dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for 
thanksgiving. When Jeshumn waxed fat, we read that he 
kicked. Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, when he put 30 
into the mouth of Celseno anything but a blessing. We may 
be gratefully sensible of the deliciousness of some kinds of food 
beyond others, though that is a meaner and inferior gratitude : 
but the proper object of the grace is sustenance, not relishes ; 



114 GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

daily bread, not delicacies ; the means of life, and not the means 
of pampering the carcass. With what frame or composure, I 
wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction at 
some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last concluding 
5 pious word — and that in all probabiUty, the sacred name 
which he preaches — is but the signal for so many impatient 
harpies to commence their foul orgies, with as little sense of 
true thankfulness (which is temperance) as those Virgilian 
fowl ! It is well if the good man himself does not feel his 
lo devotions a little clouded, those foggy sensuous steams min- 
gling with and polluting the pure altar sacrifice. 

The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the ban- 
quet which Satan, in the Paradise Regained, provides for a 
temptation in the wilderness : 

15 A table richly spread in regal mode. 

With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort 
And savour ; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, 
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd 
Gris-amber-steam'd ; all fish from sea or shore, 

20 Freshet or purling brook, for which was drain'd 

Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. 

The tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go 
down without the recommendatory preface of a benediction. 
They are like to be short graces where the devil plays the 

25 host. — I am afraid the poet wants his usual decorum in this 
place. Was he thinking of the old Roman luxury, or of a 
gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a temptation fitter for 
a Heliogabalus. The whole banquet is too civic and cuhnary, 
and the accompaniments altogether a profanation of that deep, 

30 abstracted, holy scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which 
the cook-fiend .conjures up, is out of proportion to the simple 
wants and plain hunger of the guest. He that disturbed him 
in his dreams, from his dreams might have been taught better. 



GRACE BEFORE MEAT II5 

To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of God, what 
sort of feasts presented themselves ? — He dreamed indeed, 

As appetite is wont to dream, 



Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. 

But what meats? 5 

Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, 

And saw the ravens with their horny beaks 

Food to Ehjah bringing even and morn ; 

Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought : 

He saw the prophet also how he fled 10 

Into the desert, and how there he slept 

Under a juniper ; then how awaked 

He found his supper on the coals prepared, 

And by the angel was bid rise and eat. 

And ate the second time after repose, 15 

The strength whereof sufficed him forty days : 

Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook. 

Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 

Nothing in Milton is fineher fancied than these temperate 
dreams of the divine Hungerer. To which of these two vis- 20 
ionary banquets, think you, would the introduction of what is 
called the grace have been most fitting and pertinent. 

Theoretically I am no enemy to graces ; but practically I 
own that (before meat especially) they seem to involve some- 
thing awkward and unseasonable. Our appetites, of one or 25 
another kind, are excellent spurs to our reason, which might 
otherwise but feebly set about the great ends of preserving 
and continuing the species. They are fit blessings to be 
contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude; but 
the moment of appetite (the judicious reader will apprehend 30 
me) is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The 
Quakers who go about their business, of every description, with 
more calmness than we, have more title to the use of these 



Il6 GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

benedictory prefaces. I have always admired their silent grace, 
and the more because I have observed their applications to 
the meat and drink following to be less passionate and sensual 
than ours. They are neither gluttons nor wine-bibbers as a 
5 people. They eat, as a horse bolts his chopped hay, with indif- 
ference, calmness, and cleanly circumstances. They neither 
grease nor slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib 
and tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. 

I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indiffer- 

lo ent to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's flesh 
were not made to be received with dispassionate services. I 
hate a man who swallows it, affecting not to know what he is 
eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters. I shrink instinc- 
tively from one who professes to like minced veal. There is a 

15 physiognomical character in the tastes for food. C holds 

that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dump- 
lings. I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of 
my first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for 
those innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost 

20 their gust with me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems 
to inspire gentle thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under 
culinary disappointments, as to come home at the dinner-hour, 
for instance, expecting some savoury mess, and to find one 
quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter ill melted — that com- 

25 monest of kitchen failures — puts me beside my tenour. — The 
author of' the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal noises 
over a favourite food. Was this the music quite proper to be 
preceded by the grace? or would the pious man have done 
better to postpone his devotions to a season when the blessing 

30 might be contemplated with less perturbation? I quarrel with 
no man's tastes, nor would set my thin face against those excel- 
lent things, in their way, jolHty and feasting. But as these 
exercises, however laudable, have little in them of grace or 
gracefulness, a man should be sure, before he ventures so to 



GRACE BEFORE MEAT II7 

grace them, that while he is pretending his devotions other- 
where, he is not secretly kissing his hand to some great fish — 
his Dagon — with a special consecration of no ark but the fat 
tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to 
thF banquets of angels and children ; to the roots and severer 5 
repasts of the Chartreuse ; to the slender, but not slenderly 
acknowledged, refection of the poor and humble man : but at 
the heaped-up boards of the pampered and the luxurious they 
become of dissonant mood, less timed and tuned to the occa- 
sion, methinks, than the noise of those better befitting organs 10 
would be, which children hear tales of at Hog's Norton. We 
sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in the study of them, 
or too disordered in our application to them, or engross too 
great a portion of those good things (which should be com- 
mon) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace. 15 
To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is 
to add hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is 
what makes the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless 
a service at most tables. In houses where the grace is as 
indispensable as the napkin, who has not seen that never-settled 20 
question arise, as to who shall say it ; while the good man of 
the house and the visitor clergyman, or some other guest belike 
of next authority from years or gravity, shall be bandying about 
the office between them as a matter of compliment, each of 
them not unwilling to shift the awkward burthen of an equivocal 25 
duty from his own shoulders ? 

I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines 
of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce 
to each other for the first time that evening. Before the first 
cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentlemen put 30 
it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he chose to say 
anything. It seems it is the custom with some sectaries to put 
up a short prayer before this meal also. His reverend brother 
did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an explanation, 



Il8 GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

with little less importance he made answer, that it was not a 
custom known in his church : in which courteous evasion the 
other acquiescing for good manners' sake, or in compliance 
with a weak brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was waived 
5 altogether. With what spirit might not Lucian have painted 
two priests, of his religion, playing into each other's hands the 
compliment of performing or omitting a sacrifice, — the hungry 
God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expectant nostrils 
hovering over the two flamens, and (as between two stools) 

10 going away in the end without his supper. 

A short form upon these occasions is felt to want rever- 
ence ; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of 
impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic 
conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant 

IS school-fellow) C. V. L., when importuned for a grace, used to 
inquire, first slyly leering down the table, *' Is there no clergy- 
man here?" — significantly adding, ''Thank G — ." Nor do 
I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we 
were used to preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a 

20 preamble connecting with that humble blessing a recognition 
of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagina- 
tion which religion has to offer. No7i tunc illis erat locus. I 
remember we were put to it to reconcile the phrase "good 
creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the fare set 

25 before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low and 
animal sense, — till some one recalled a legend, which told 
how in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers 
were wont to have smoking joints of roast meat upon their 
nightly boards, till some pious benefactor, commiserating the 

30 decencies, rather than the palates, of the children, commuted 
our flesh for garments, and gave us — horresco referens — 
trousers instead of mutton. 



DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE II9 



XVI. DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when 
they were children : to stretch their imagination to the con- 
ception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they 
never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about 
me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother 5 
Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times 
bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been 
the scene — so at least it was generally believed in that part 
of the country — of the tragic incidents which they had lately 
become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the to 
Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and 
their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon 
the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the 
Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to 
set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no 15 
story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's 
looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to 
say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field 
was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was 
not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the 20 
charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be 
the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who 
preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which 
he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county ; but still 
she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept 25 
up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which 
afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all 
its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's 
other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward 
as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen 30 
lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C. 's tawdry gilt 



120 DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 

drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, " that 
would be foolish, indeed." And then I told how, when she 
came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all 
the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood 
5 for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, 
because she had been such a good and religious woman ; so 
good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and 
a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread 
her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person 

lo their great-grandmother Field once was : and how in her youth 
she was esteemed the best dancer — here Alice's little right foot 
played an involuntary movement, till upon my looking grave, 
it desisted — the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till 
a cruel disease, called cancer, came, and bowed her down with 

15 pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them 
stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and 
religious. Then I told how she used to sleep by herself in a 
lone chamber of the great lone house ; and how she believed 
that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight 

20 gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, 
but she said "those innocents would do her no harm;" and 
how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my 
maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or 
rehgious as she — and yet I never saw the infants. Here John 

25 expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then 
I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to 
the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to 
spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of 
the twelve Csesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the 

30 old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned 
into marble with them ; how I could never be tired with roam- 
ing about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with 
their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken 
panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out — sometimes in the 



DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 121 

spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, 
unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross 
me — and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, 
without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were for- 
bidden fruit, unless now and then, — and because I had more 5 
pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking 
yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the 
fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at — or in 
lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells 
around me — or basking in the orangery, till I could almost 10 
fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes 
in that grateful warmth — or in watching the dace that darted 
to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with 
here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the 
water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent frisk- 15 
ings, — I had more pleasure in these busy- idle diversions than 
in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and 
such like common baits of children. Here John slyly depos- 
ited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes which, not unob- 
served by AHce, he had meditated dividing with her, and both 20 
seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. 
Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though 
their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet 
in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, 

John L ■, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, 25 

and a king to the rest of us ; and, instead of moping about 
in soUtary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most 
mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger 
than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county 
in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out 30 
— and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but 
had too much spirit to be always pent up within their bounda- 
ries — and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as 
he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their 



122 DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 

great-grandmother Field most especially ; and how he used to 
carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy — for 
he was a good bit older than me — many a mile when I could 
not walk for pain ; — and how in after-life he became lame- 
5 footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowance enough 
for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember suf- 
ficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame- 
footed ; and how when he died, though he had not been dead 
an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a 

10 distance there is betwixt life and death ; and how I bore his 
death as I thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted 
and haunted me ; and though I did not cry or take it to heart 
as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, 
yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much 

15 I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his 
crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling 
with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have 
him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor 
uncle, must have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here 

20 the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning 
which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked 
up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell 
them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I 
told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes 

25 in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair AHce W n ; 

and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them 
what coyness, and difiiculty, and denial meant in maidens — 
when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice 
looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, 

30 that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, 
or whose that bright hair was ; and while I stood gazing, both 
the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and 
still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were 
seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely 



ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS I23 

impressed upon me the effects of speech : " We are not of 
Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children 
of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing ; less than nothing, 
and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must 
wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages, before we 

have existence, and a name " and immediately awaking, I 

found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where 
I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by 
my side — but John L. (or James Elia) was gone forever. 



XVII. ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

The casual sight of an old Play Bill, which I picked up the 10 
other day — I know not by what chance it was preserved so 
long — tempts me to call to mind a few of the Players, who 
make the principal figure in it. It presents the cast of parts 
in the Twelfth Night at the old Drury Lane Theatre two-and- 
thirty years ago. There is something very touching in these 15 
old remembrances. They make us think how we once used to 
read a Play Bill — not, as now peradventure, singling out a 
favourite performer, and casting a negligent eye over the rest ; 
but spelhng out every name, down to the very mutes and 
servants of the scene : — when it was a matter of no small 20 
moment to us whether Whitfield, or Packer, took the part of 
Fabian ; when Benson and Burton and Phillimore — names of 
small account — had an importance beyond what we can be 
content to attribute now to the time's best actors. — " Orsino, 
by Mr. Barrymore." — What a full Shakspearean sound it car- 25 
ries ! how fresh to memory arise the image, and the manner, 
of the gentle actor ! 

Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last ten 
or fifteen years, can have no adequate notion of her performance 
of such parts as Ophelia ; Helena, in All 's Well that Ends 30 



124 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

Well ; and Viola in this play. Her voice had latterly acquired 
a coarseness, which suited well enough with her Nells and Hoy- 
dens, but in those days it sank, with her steady melting eye, 
into the heart. Her joyous parts — in which her memory now 
5 chiefly lives — in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. 
There is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised 
story of her love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she 
had foreseen, so as to weave it into an harmonious period, line 
necessarily following line, to make up the music — yet I have 

10 heard it so spoken, or rather read^ not without its grace and 
beauty — but, when she had declared her sister's history to be 
a "blank," and that she "never told her love," there was a 
pause, as if the story had ended — and then the image of the 
"worm in the bud" came up as a new suggestion — and the 

IS heightened image of " Patience " still followed after that, as by 
some growing (and not mechanical) process, thought spring- 
ing up after thought, I would almost say, as they were watered 
by her tears. So in those fine lines — 

Write loyal cantons of contemned love — 
20 Halloo your name to the reverberate hills — 

there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that 
which was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her passion; 
or it was nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it 
seemed altogether without rule or law. 

25 Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in the pride of her 
beauty, made an admirable Olivia. She was particularly excel- 
lent in her unbending scenes in conversation with the Clown. 
I have seen some Olivias — and those very sensible actresses 
too — who in these interlocutions have seemed to set their wits 

30 at the jester, and to vie conceits with him in downright emula- 
tion. But she used him for her sport, like what he was, to 
trifle a leisure sentence or two with, and then to be dismissed, 
and she to be the Great Lady still. She touched the imperious 



ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 1 25 

fantastic humour of the character with nicety. Her fine spa- 
cious person filled the scene. 

The part of Malvolio has in my judgment been so often 
misunderstood, and the general merits of the actor, who then 
played it, so unduly appreciated, that I shall hope for pardon, 5 
if I am a Httle proHx upon these points. 

Of all the actors who flourished in my time — a melancholy 
phrase if taken aright, reader — Bensley had most of the swell 
of soul, was greatest in the delivery of heroic conceptions, the 
emotions consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to 10 
the fancy. He had the true poetical enthusiasm — the rarest 
faculty among players. None that I remember possessed even 
a portion of that fine madness which he threw out in Hotspur's 
famous rant about glory, or the transports of the Venetian 
incendiary at the vision of the fired city.^ His voice had the 15 
dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. 
His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed by 
affectation ; and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost 
in every movement. He seized the moment of passion with 
the greatest truth ; hke a faithful clock, never striking before 20 
the time ; never anticipating or leading you to anticipate. He 
was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He seemed come 
upon the stage to do the poet's message simply, and he did it 
with as genuine fidehty as the nuncios in Homer deliver the 
errands of the gods. He let the passion or the sentiment 25 
do its own work without prop or bolstering. He would have 
scorned to mountebank it ; and betrayed none of that clever- 
ness which is the bane of serious acting. For that reason, 
his lago was the only endurable one which I remember to 
have seen. No spectator from his action could divine more 30 

iHow lovely the Adriatic whore 
Dress'd in her flames will shine — devouring flames — 
Such as will burn her to her wat'ry bottom, 
And hiss in her foundation. p.^^^^^ .^ y^^^^^ Preserved. 



126 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

of his artifice than Othello was supposed to do. His confes- 
sions in soliloquy alone put you in possession of the mystery. 
There were no by-intimations to make the audience fancy their 
own discernment so much greater than that of the Moor — 
5 who commonly stands like a great helpless mark set up for 
mine Ancient, and a quantity of barren spectators, to shoot 
their bolts at. The lago of Bensley did not go to work so 
grossly. There was a triumphant tone about the character, 
natural to a general consciousness of power ; but none of that 

10 petty vanity which chuckles and cannot contain itself upon 
any little successful stroke of its knavery — as is common with 
your small villains, and green probationers in mischief. It did 
not clap or crow before its time. It was not a man setting 
his wits at a child, and winking all the while at other children 

15 who are mightily pleased at being let into the secret; but a 
consummate villain entrapping a noble nature into toils, against 
which no discernment was available, where the manner was as 
fathomless as the purpose seemed dark, and without motive. 
The part of Malvolio, in the Twelfth Night, was performed by 

20 Bensley, with a richness and a dignity, of which (to judge from 
some recent castings of that character) the very tradition must 
be worn out from the stage. No manager in those days would 
have dreamed of giving it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons : 
when Bensley was occasionally absent from the theatre, John 

25 Kemble thought it no derogation to succeed to the part. Mal- 
voHo is not essentially ludicrous. He becomes comic but by 
accident. He is cold, austere, repelling ; but dignified, con- 
sistent, and, for what appears, rather of an over-stretched 
morality. Maria describes him as a sort of Puritan ; and he 

30 might have worn his gold chain with honour in one of our old 
roundhead families, in the service of a Lambert, or a Lady 
Fairfax. But his moraUty and his manners are misplaced in 
Illyria. He is opposed to the proper levities of the piece, and 
falls in the unequal contest. Still his pride, or his gravity (call 



■ ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 12/ 

it which you will), is inherent, and native to the man, not mock 
or affected, which latter only are fit objects to excite laughter. 
His quahty is at the best unlovely, but neither buffoon nor 
contemptible. His bearing is lofty, a little above his station, 
but probably not much above his deserts. We see no reason 5 
why he should not have been brave, honourable, accomplished. 
His careless committal of the ring to the ground (which he 
was commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a generosity 
of birth and feeling.^ His dialect on all occasions is that of a 
gentleman and a man of education. We must not confound lo 
him with the eternal old, low steward of comedy. He is mas- 
ter of the household to a great Princess ; a dignity probably 
conferred upon him for other respects than age or length of 
service.^ Olivia, at the first indication of his supposed mad- 
ness, declares that she "would not have him miscarry for half 15 
of her dowry." Does this look as if the character was meant 
to appear little or insignificant? Once, indeed, she accuses 
him to his face — of what? — of being " sick of self-love," — 
but with a gentleness and considerateness which could not 
have been, if she had not thought that this particular infirm- 20 
ity shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the knight, and his 
sottish revellers, is sensible and spirited ; and when we take into 

1 Viola. She took the ring from me, I '11 none of it. 

Mai. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it should 
be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye ; if not, be 
it his that finds it. — Original footnote. 

2 Mrs. Inchbald seems to have fallen into the common mistake of the 
character in some otherwise sensible observations on this comedy. " It 
might be asked," she says, " whether this credulous steward was much 
deceived in imputing a degraded taste, in the sentiments of love, to his 
fair lady Olivia, as she actually did fall in love with a domestic, and one 
who, from his extreme youth, was perhaps a greater reproach to her dis- 
cretion than had she cast a tender regard upon her old and faithful 
servant." But where does she gather the fact of his age ? Neither 
Maria nor Fabian ever cast that reproach upon him. 



128 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, and the 
strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled mourn- 
ing would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, 
Malvolio might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his 
5 keeping ; as it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, 
or kinsmen, to look to it — for Sir Toby had dropped all such 
nice respects at the buttery-hatch. That Malvolio was meant to 
be represented as possessing estimable qualities, the expression 
of the Duke in his anxiety to have him reconciled, almost infers : 

10 "Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace." Even in his abused 
state of chains and darkness, a sort of greatness seems never to 
desert him. He argues highly and well with the supposed Sir 
Topas, and philosophizes gallantly upon his straw.^ There must 
have been some shadow of worth about the man ; he must have 

15 been something more than a mere vapour — a thing of straw, 
or Jack in office — before Fabian and Maria could have ven- 
tured sending him upon a courting-errand to Olivia. There was 
some consonancy (as he would say) in the undertaking, or the 
jest would have been too bold even for that house of misrule. 

20 There was ''example for it," said Malvolio; "the lady of 
the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe." Possibly, 
too, he might remember — for it must have happened about 
his time — an instance of a Duchess of Malfy (a countrywoman 
of Olivia's, and her equal at least) descending from her state to 

25 court a steward : 

The misery of them that are born great! 

They are forced to woo because none dare woo them. 

To be sure, the lady was not very tenderly handled for it by 
her brothers in the sequel, but their vengeance appears to have 



1 Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl ? 
Mai. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. 
Clowtt. What thinkest thou of his opinion? 
Mai, I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion. 



ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 1 29 

been whetted rather by her presumption in re-marrying at all 
(when they had meditated the keeping of her fortune in their 
family), than by her choice of an inferior, of Antonio's noble 
merits especially, for her husband ; and, besides, Olivia's brother 
was just dead. Malvolio was a man of reading, and possibly 5 
reflected upon these hnes, or something like them, in his own 
country poetry : — 

Ceremony has made many fools. 
It is as easy way unto a duchess 

As to a hatted dame, if her love answer : 10 

But that by timorous honours, pale respects, 
Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways 
Hard of themselves. 

*' 'T is but fortune ; all is fortune. Maria once told me she did 
affect me ; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, 1 5 
should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion." If 
here was no encouragement, the devil is in it. I wish we could 
get at the private history of all this. Between the Countess 
herself, serious or dissembling — for one hardly knows how to 
apprehend this fantastical great lady — and the practices of 20 
that delicious little piece of mischief, Maria, the man might 
well be rapt into a fool's paradise. 

Bensley, accordingly, threw over the part an air of Spanish 
loftiness. He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castihan. 
He was starch, spruce, opinionated ; but his superstructure of 25 
pride seemed bottomed upon a sense of worth. There was 
something in it beyond the coxcomb. It was big and swelling, 
but you could not be sure that it was hollow. You might wish 
to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an elevation. 
He was magnificent from the outset ; but when the decent 30 
sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison 
of self-love, in his conceit of the Countess's affection, gradually 
to work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha 



I30 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

in person stood before you. How he went smiling to himself ! 
with what ineffable carelessness would he twirl his gold chain ! 
what a dream it was ! you were infected with the illusion, and 
did not wish that it should be removed ! you had no room for 
5 laughter ! if an unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded 
itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable infirmity of the man's 
nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies — but in truth 
you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it lasted — 
you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an age with 

10 the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but for a day in the 
conceit of such a lady's love as Olivia ? Why, the Duke would 
have given his principality but for a quarter of a minute, sleep- 
ing or waking, to have been so deluded. The man seemed to 
tread upon air, to taste manna, to walk with his head in the 

15 clouds, to mate Hyperion. O ! shake not the castles of his 
pride — endure yet for a season, bright moments of confidence 
— " stand still, ye watches of the element," that Malvolio may 
be still in fancy fair Olivia's lord — but fate and retribution 
say no — I hear the mischievous titter of Maria — the witty 

20 taunts of Sir Toby — the still more insupportable triumph of 
the foolish knight — the counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked — 
and "thus the whirligig of time," as the true clown hath it, 
"brings in his revenges." I confess that I never saw the 
catastrophe of this character, while Bensley played it, without 

25 a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few 
now remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in 
him ! Lovegrove, who came nearest to the old actors, revived 
the character some few seasons ago, and made it sufficiently 
grotesque ; but Dodd was //, as it came out of nature's hands. 

30 It might be said to remain i?i puris natiiralibtis. In express- 
ing slowness of apprehension this actor surpassed all others. 
You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing slowly over 
his countenance, climbing up by little and little, with a painful 
process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness of a twilight 



ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS I3I 

conception — its highest meridian. He seemed to keep back 
his intellect, as some have had the power to retard their pulsa- 
tion. The balloon takes less time in filling, than it took to 
cover the expansion of his broad moony face over all its 
quarters with expression. A ghmmer of understanding would 5 
appear in a corner of his eye, and for lack of fuel go out 
again. A part of his forehead would catch a little intelligence, 
and be a long time in communicating it to the remainder. 

I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five-and- 
twenty years ago, that walking in the gardens of Gray's Inn 10 
— they were then far finer than they are now — the accursed 
Verulam Buildings had not encroached upon all the east side 
of them, cutting out delicate green crankles, and shouldering 
away one of two of the stately alcoves of the terrace — the 
survivor stands gaping and relationless as if it remembered its 15 
brother — they are still the best gardens of any of the Inns of 
Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten — have the gravest 
character, their aspect being altogether reverend and law- 
breathing — Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their 
gravel walks — taking my afternoon solace on a summer day 20 
upon the aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came 
towards me, whom, from his grave air and deportment, I 
judged to be one of the old Benchers of the Inn. He had a 
serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be in meditations 
of mortality. As I have an instinctive awe of old Benchers, I 25 
was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of respect 
which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, 
and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than; 
any positive motion of the body to that effect — a species of 
humility and will-worship which I observe, nine times out of 30 
ten, rather puzzles than pleases the person it is offered to — 
when the face turning full upon me strangely identified itself 
with that of Dodd. Upon close inspection I was not mistaken. 
But could this sad thoughtful countenance be the same vacant 



132 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

face of folly which I had hailed so often under circumstances 
of gaiety ; which I had never seen without a smile, or recog- 
nized but as the usher of mirth ; that looked out so formally 
flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so impotently 
5 busy in Backbite ; so blankly divested of all meaning, or reso- 
lutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand 
agreeable impertinences ? Was this the face — full of thought 
and carefulness — that had so often divested itself at will of 
every trace of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy 

10 face for two or three hours at least of its furrows? Was this 
the face — manly, sober, intelligent — which I had so often 
despised, made mocks at, made merry with? The remem- 
brance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came upon 
me with a reproach of insult. I could have asked it pardon. 

15 I thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury. There is 
something strange as well as sad in seeing actors — your pleas- 
ant fellows particularly — subjected to and suffering the com- 
mon lot — their fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem 
to belong to the scene, their actions to be amenable to poetic 

20 justice only. We can hardly connect them with more awful 
responsibilities. The death of this fine actor took place shortly 
after this meeting. He had quitted the stage some months ; 
and as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of resorting 
daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In 

25 these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of many 
scenic and some real vanities — weaning himself from the 
frivoUties of the lesser and the greater theatre — doing gentle 
penance for a life of no very reprehensible fooleries, — taking 
off by degrees the buffoon mask which he might feel he had 

30 worn too long — and rehearsing for a more solemn cast of part. 
Dying, he ''put on the weeds of Dominic." ^ 

1 Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice collec- 
tion of old English literature. I should judge him to have been a man 
of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of study 



ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 1 33 

If a few can remember Dodd, many yet living will not easily 
forget the pleasant creature, who in those days enacted the 
part of the Clown to Dodd's Sir Andrew. — Richard, or rather 
Dicky Suett — for so in his lifetime he delighted to be called, 
and time hath ratified the appellation — lieth buried on the $ 
north side of the cemetery of Holy Paul, to whose service his 
nonage and tender years were dedicated. There are who do 
yet remember him at that period — his pipe clear and harmo- 
nious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he 
was "cherub Dicky." lo 

What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he should 
exchange the holy for the profane state ; whether he had lost 
his good voice (his best recommendation to that office), 
like Sir John, "with hallooing and singing of anthems;" or 
whether he was adjudged to lack something, even in those 15 
early years, of the gravity indispensable to an occupation 
which professeth to "commerce with the skies" — I could 
never rightly learn; but we find him, after the probation of 
a twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular condition, and 
become one of us. 20 

I think he was not altogether of that timber out of which 
cathedral seats and sounding-boards are hewed. But if a glad 
heart — kind and therefore glad — be any part of sanctity, 
then might the robe of Motley, with which he invested him- 
self with so much humiHty after his deprivation, and which he 25 
wore so long with so much blameless satisfaction to himself 
and to the public, be accepted for a surplice — his white stole, 
and all^e, 

could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him one 
evening in Aguecheek, and, recognizing Dodd the next day in Fleet 
Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him as 
the identical Knight of the preceding evening with a " Save you, Sir 
Andrew." Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address from 
a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the hand, put him 
off with an " Away, FoolT 



134 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

The first fruits of his secularization was an engagement upon 
the boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he commenced, as I 
have been told, with adopting the manner of Parsons in old 
men's characters. At the period in which most of us knew 
5 him, he was no more an imitator than he was in any true sense 
himself imitable. 

He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came in 
to trouble all things with a welcome perplexity, himself no whit 
troubled for the matter. He was known, like Puck, by his 

lo note — Ha! Hal Ha! — sometimes deepening to Ho ! Ho ! 
Ho I with an irresistible accession derived perhaps remotely 
from his ecclesiastical education, foreign to his prototype of, 
— O La! Thousands of hearts yet respond to the chuckling 
O La ! of Dicky Suett, brought back to their remembrance by 

15 the faithful transcript of his friend Mathews's mimicry. The 
" force of nature could no farther go." He drolled upon the 
stock of these two syllables richer than the cuckoo. 

Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his com- 
position. Had he had but two grains (nay, half a grain) of it, 

20 he could never have supported himself upon those two spider's 
strings, which served him (in the latter part of his unmixed 
existence) as legs. A doubt or a scruple must have made him 
totter, a sigh have puffed him down ; the weight of a frown 
had staggered him, a wrinkle made him lose his balance. But 

25 on he went, scrambling upon those airy stilts of his, with Robin 
Good-Fellow, " thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of a 
scratched face or a torn doublet. 

Shakespeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and jest- 
ers. They have all the true Suett stamp, a loose and sham- 

30 bling gait, a slippery tongue, this last the ready midwife to 
a without-pain-delivered jest ; in words, light as air, venting 
truths deep as the centre; with idlest rhymes tagging conceit 
when busiest, singing with Lear in the tempest, or Sir Toby 
at the buttery-hatch. 



ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 1 35 

Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of per- 
sonal favourites with the town than any actors before or after. 
The difference, I take it, was this : — Jack was more beloved 
for his sweet, good-natured, moral pretensions. Dicky was 
more liked for his sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at all. 5 
Your whole conscience stirred with Bannister's performance of 
Walter in the Children in the Wood — but Dicky seemed like 
a thing, as Shakespeare says of Love, too young to know what 
conscience is. He put us into Vesta's days. Evil fled before 
him — not as from Jack, as from an antagonist, — but because 10 
it could not touch him, any more than a cannon-ball a fly. 
He was delivered from the burthen of that death ; and when 
Death came himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is 
recorded of him by Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his 
exit, that he received the last stroke, neither varying his 15 
accustomed tranquillity, nor tune, with the simple exclama- 
tion, worthy to have been recorded in his epitaph — O La ! 
O La! Bobby! 

The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly 
played Sir Toby in those days ; but there is a solidity of wit 20 
in the jests of that half-Falstaff which he did not quite fill out. 
He was as much too showy, as Moody (who sometimes took 
the part) was dry and sottish. In sock or buskin there was 
an air of swaggering gentility about Jack Palmer. He was a 
gentleman with a slight infusion of the footman. His brother 25 
Bob (of recenter memory), who was his shadow in everything 
while he lived, and dwindled into less than a shadow afterwards 
— was a gentleman with a little stronger infusion of the latter 
ingredient ; that was all. It is amazing how a little of the 
more or less makes a difference in these things. When you 3° 
saw Bobby in the Duke's Servant,^ you said, what a pity such 
a pretty fellow was only a servant. When you saw Jack fig- 
uring in Captain Absolute, you thought you could trace his 
1 High Life Below Stairs. 



136 ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

promotion to some lady of quality who fancied the handsome 
fellow in his top-knot, and had bought him a commission. 
Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable. 

Jack had two voices, — both plausible, hypocritical, and 
5 insinuating; but his secondary or supplemental voice still 
more decisively histrionic than his common one. It was 
reserved for the spectator ; and the dramatis personcB were 
supposed to know nothing at all about it. The lies of young 
Wilding, and the sentiments in Joseph Surface, were thus 

10 marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This secret 
correspondence with the company before the curtain (which 
is the bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely happy 
effect in some kinds of comedy, in the more highly artificial 
comedy of Congreve or of Sheridan especially, where the abso- 

15 lute sense of reality (so indispensable to scenes of interest) is 
not required, or would rather interfere to diminish your pleasure. 
The fact is, you do not believe in such characters as Surface — 
the villain of artificial comedy — even while you read or see 
them. If you did, they would shock and not divert you. When 

20 Ben, in Love for Love, returns from sea, the following exquisite 
dialogue occurs at his first meeting with his father — 

Sir Sampso7i. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I 
saw thee. 

Ben. Ey, ey, been ! Been far enough, an that be all. — Well, father, 
25 and how do all at home ? how does brother Dick, and brother Val ? 

Sir Sampson. Dick ! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two 
years. I writ you word when you were at Leghorn. 

Ben. Mess, that 's true ; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you 
say — Well, and how ? — I have a many questions to ask you — 

30 Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life would 
be revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-existed 
with the warm-hearted temperament of the character. But 
when you read it in the spirit with which such playful selections 
and specious combinations rather than strict metaphrases of 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 1 3/ 

nature should be taken, or when you saw Bannister play it, 
it neither did, nor does, wound the moral sense at all. For 
what is Ben — the pleasant sailor which Bannister gives us — 
but a piece of satire — a creation of Congreve's fancy — a 
dreamy combination of all the accidents of a sailor's character 5 

— his contempt of money — his creduHty to women — with 
that necessary estrangement from home which it is just within 
the verge of credibiHty to suppose might produce such an 
hallucination as is here described. We never think the worse 
of Ben for it, or feel it as a stain upon his character. But 10 
when an actor comes, and instead of the delightful phantom 

— the creature dear to half-belief — which Bannister exhibited 

— displays before our eyes a downright concretion of a Wap- 
ping sailor — a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar — and nothing 
else — when instead of investing it with a delicious confused- 15 
ness of the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose 

— he gives to it a downright daylight understanding, and a 
full consciousness of its actions ; thrusting forward the sensi- 
bilities of the character with a pretence as if it stood upon 
nothing else, and was to be judged by them alone — we feel 20 
the discord of the thing ; the scene is disturbed ; a real man 
has got in among the dramatis personce^ and puts them out. 
We want the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is 
not behind the curtain but in the first or second gallery. 



XVIII. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

I LIKE to meet a sweep — understand me — not a grown 25 
sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive 
— but one of those tender novices, blooming through their 
first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from 
the cheek — such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat 
earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the 30 



138 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark 
should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom 
anticipating the sun-rise? 

I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks — poor 
5 blots — innocent blacknesses — 

I reverence these young Africans of our own growth — these 
almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption ; 
and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the 
nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience 

10 to mankind. 

When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness 
their operation ! to see a chit no bigger than one's self enter, 
one knew not by what process, into what seemed the fauces 
Averni — to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding 

15 on through so many dark stifling caverns, horrid shades ! — to 
shudder with the idea that " now, surely, he must be lost for 
ever ! " — ^ to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered 
daylight — and then (O fulness of delight) running out of 
doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon 

20 emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious 
like some flag waved over a conquered citadel ! I seem to 
remember having been told, that a bad sweep was once left in 
a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. 
It was an awful spectacle certainly ; not much unlike the old 

25 stage direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of child 
crowned with a tree in his hand rises." 

Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy 
early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to 
give him twopence. If it be starving weather, and to the 

30 proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels 
(no unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand on 
thy humanity will surely rise to a tester. 

There is a composition, the groundwork of which I have 
understood to be the sweet wood yclept sassafras. This wood 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS I 39 

boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion 
of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the 
China luxury. I know not how thy palate may relish it ; for 
myself, with every deference to the judicious Mr. Read, who 
hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one he 5 
avers in London) for the vending of this " wholesome and 
pleasant beverage," on the south side of Fleet Street, as thou 
approachest Bridge Street — the only Salopian house ^ — I have 
never yet adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin 
of his commended ingredients — a cautious premonition to the 10 
olfactories constantly whispering to me, that my stomach must 
infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen 
palates, otherwise not uninstructed in dietetical elegances, sup 
it up with avidity. 

I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it 15 
happens, but I have always found that this composition is sur- 
prisingly gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper 
— whether the oily particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) 
do attenuate and soften the fuHginous concretions, which are 
sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the 20 
mouth in these unfledged practitioners; or whether Nature, 
sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood in the 
lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth her 
sassafras for a sweet lenitive — but so it is, that no possible 
taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper 25 
can convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. 
Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the 
ascending steam, to gratify one sense, if possible, seemingly no 
less pleased than those domestic animals — cats — when they 
purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something 30 
more in these sympathies than philosophy can inculcate. 

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his 
is the only Salopian house ; yet be it known to thee, reader — 
if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou 



140 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

art happily ignorant of the fact — he hath a race of industrious 
imitators, who from stalls, and under open sky, dispense the 
same savoury mess to humbler customers, at the dead time of 
the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeHng home 
5 from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan leaving 
his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, 
not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, 
for the honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in sum- 
mer, between the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen- 

10 fires, the kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least 
satisfactory odours. The rake who wisheth to dissipate his o'er 
night vapours in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, 
as he passeth ; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the 
fragrant breakfast. 

15 This is Saloop — the precocious herb-woman's darling — the 
delight of the early ^ gardener, who* transports his smoking 
cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent Gar- 
den's famed piazzas — the delight, and, oh I fear, too often the 
envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him shouldest thou haply 

20 encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the grateful steam, 
regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee but three 
halfpennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an added 
halfpenny) so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'ercharged 
secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter 

25 volume to the welkin — so may the descending soot never taint 
thy costly well-ingredienced soups — nor the odious cry, quick- 
reaching from street to street, of the fired chimney^ invite the 
rattling engines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a 
casual scintillation thy peace and pocket ! 

30 I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts ; the 
jeers and taunts of the populace ; the low-bred triumph they 
display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentle- 
man. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with 
something more than forgiveness. — In the last winter but one. 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS I41 

pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed precipitation when 
I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back 
in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough 
— yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had hap- 
pened — when the roguish grin of one of these young wits 5 
encountered me. There he stood, pointing me out with his 
dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his 
mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the 
fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of 
his poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and soot- 10 
inflamed, yet twinkling through all with such a joy, snatched 

out of desolation, that Hogarth but Hogarth has got him 

already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, 

grinning at the pie-man there he stood, as he stands in 

the picture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever — 15 
with such a maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his 
mirth — for the grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no 
malice in it — that I could have been content, if the honour 
of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and 
his mockery till midnight. 20 

I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are 
called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies 
must pardon me) is a casket presumably holding such jewels ; 
but, methinks, they should take leave to " air " them as frugally 
as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their 25 
teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth 
of a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those white 
and shining ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in 
manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when 



A sable cloud 
Turns forth her silver lining on the night. 

It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct ; a badge 
of better days ; a hint of nobihty : — and, doubtless, under 



30 



142 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn dis- 
guisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle condi- 
tions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree. The 
premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but 
5 too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and almost 
infantile abductions ; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so 
often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be 
accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions ; many 
noble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, 

10 countenance the fact ; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow 
a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu be 
but a soUtary instance of good fortune, out of many irreparable 
and hopeless defiliatmis . 

In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since 

15 — under a ducal canopy — (that seat of the Howards is an 
object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the 
late Duke was especially a connoisseur) — encircled with cur- 
tains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven — 
folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap 

20 where Venus lulled Ascanius — was discovered by chance, after 
all methods of search had failed, at noonday, fast asleep, a 
lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow 
confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly 
chimneys, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this 

25 magnificent chamber; and, tired with his tedious explorations, 
was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which 
he there saw exhibited ; so, creeping between the sheets very 
quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a 
young Howard. 

30 Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. — 
But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what 
I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work 
in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor 
child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be 



THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 1 43 

visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty as he would 
be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a Duke's bed, 
and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when the 
rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far above 
his pretensions — is this probable, I would ask, if the great 5 
power of nature, which I contend for, had not been mani- 
fested within him, prompting to the adventure ? Doubtless this 
young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must 
be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to full con- 
sciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to 10 
be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he 
there found, into which he was now but creeping back as into 
his proper incunabula^ and resting-place. By no other theory, 
than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call 
it), can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any 15 
other system, so indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, 
sleeper. 

My pleasant friend Jem White was so impressed with a 
behef of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that 
in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor 20 
changelings, he instituted an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, 
at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. 
It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly 
return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. Cards were issued a 
week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropo- 25 
Hs, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and 
then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good- 
naturedly winked at ; but our main body were infantry. One 
unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, 
had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was provi- 30 
dentially discovered in time to be no chimney-sweeper (all is 
not soot which looks so), was quoited out of the presence with 
universal indignation, as not having on the wedding garment ; 
but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place 



144 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 

chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north 
side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the 
agreeable hubbub of that vanity ; but remote enough not to 
be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. 
5 The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary 
parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as 
substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with 
her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues 
dilated at the savour. James White, as head waiter, had charge 

10 of the first table ; and myself, with our trusty companion Bigod, 
ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clamour- 
ing and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first 
table — for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done 
the humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. 

15 After some general expression of thanks for the honour the 
company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp 
the greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), 
that stood frying and fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing " the 
gentleman," and imprint upon her chaste hps a tender salute, 

20 whereat the universal host would set up a shout that tore the 
concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night 
with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the sable 
younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuous 
sayings — how he would fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths, 

25 reserving the lengthier links for the seniors — how he would 
intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, 
declaring it " must to the pan again to be browned, for it was 
not fit for a gentleman's eating " — how he would recommend 
this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust, to a 

30 tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking 
their teeth, which were their best patrimony, — how genteelly 
he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming 
the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose 
their custom ; with a special recommendation to wipe the Up 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 145 

before drinking. Then we had our toasts — "The King," — 
the "Cloth," — which, whether they understood or not, was 
equally diverting and flattering ; — and for a crowning sen- 
timent, which never failed, " May the Brush supersede the 
Laurel." All these, and fifty other fancies, which were rather 5 
felt than comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing 
upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a "Gentle- 
men, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a pro- 
digious comfort to those young orphans ; every now and then 
stuffing into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on 10 
these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, 
which pleased them mightily, and was the savouriest part, you 
may believe, of the entertainment. 

Golden lads and lasses must, 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 15 

James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have 
long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the 
world when he died — of my world at least. His old clients 
look for him among the pens ; and, missing him, reproach the 
altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield 20 
departed for ever. 



XIX. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. 
was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first 
seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting 
it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this 25 
day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great 
Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, 
where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho- 
fang, hterally the Cook's holiday. The manuscript goes on to 



146 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiUng (which I take 
to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the 
manner following. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out 
into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast 
5 for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, 
a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as 
younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into 
a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagra- 
tion over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to 

10 ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make- 
shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more 
importance, a fine Utter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than 
nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a 
luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read 

15 of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, 
not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father 
and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, 
and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss 
of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his 

20 father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of 
one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, 
unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What 
could it proceed from? — not from the burnt cottage — he 
had smelt that smell before — indeed this was by no means 

25 the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the 
negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it 
resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A pre- 
monitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether 
lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to 

30 feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his 
fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion 
to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had 
come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life 
(in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG I47 

it) he tasted — crackling I Again he felt and fumbled at the 
pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his 
fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into 
his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and 
the pig that tasted so delicious ; and, surrendering himself up 5 
to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls 
of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming 
it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered 
amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and 
finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young 10 
rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded 
not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleas- 
ure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered 
him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those 
remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not 15 
beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, 
becoming a Httle more sensible of his situation, something like 
the following dialogue ensued. 

"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? 
Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses 20 
with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must 
be eating fire, and I know not what — what have you got there, 
I say?" 

" O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the 
burnt pig eats." 25 

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, 
and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that 
should eat burnt pig. 

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morn- 
ing, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, 30 
thrust the lesser half by main force into the fi'sts of Ho-ti, still 
shouting out, " Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste, — 
O Lord," — with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming 
all the while as if he would choke. 



148 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abomina- 
ble thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death 
for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching 
his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same 
5 remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, 
make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not 
altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manu- 
script here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat 
down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched 

10 all that remained of the litter. 

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, 
for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a 
couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improv- 
ing upon the good meat which God had sent them. Never- 

15 theless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti's 
cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. 
Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break 
out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as 
the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a 

20 blaze ; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, 
instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent 
to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible 
mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take 
their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evi- 

25.dence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, 
and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of 
the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the 
culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He 
handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, 

30 as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature 
prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face 
of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever 
given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, stran- 
gers, reporters, and all present — without leaving the box, or 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG I49 

any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simul- 
taneous verdict of Not Guilty. 

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest 
iniquity of the decision ; and, when the court was dismissed, 
went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for 5 
love or money. In a few days his Lordship's town house was 
observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there 
was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and 
pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insur- 
ance offices one and all shut up shop. People built shghter 10 
and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science 
of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. 
Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of 
time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who 
made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any 15 
other animal, might be cooked {bu7'nt^ as they called it) without 
the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then 
first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the 
string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I forget in 
whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manu- 20 
script, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious 
arts, make their way among mankind. 

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, 
it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an 
experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) 25 
could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext 
and excuse might be found in roast pig. 

Of all the delicacies in the whole mwtdus edibilis^ I will 
maintain it to be the most delicate — princeps obsoniorum. 

I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig and 30 
pork — those hobbydehoys — but a young and tender suckling 
— under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty — with no 
original speck of the amor immundttice, the hereditary failing 
of the first parent, yet manifest — his voice as yet not broken, 



150 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

but something between a childish treble, and a grumble — the 
mild forerunner, ox prceludiiwt, of a grunt. 

He must he roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors 
ate them seethed, or boiled — but what a sacrifice of the exte- 
5 rior tegument ! 

There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of 

the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling, as 

it is well called — the very teeth are invited to their share of 

the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle 

10 resistance — with the adhesive oleaginous — O call it not fat 

— but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it — the tender 
blossoming of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot 

— in the first innocence — the cream and quintessence of the 
child-pig's yet pure food — the lean, no lean, but a kind of 

15 animal manna, — or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) 
so blended and running into each other, that both together 
make but one ambrosian result, or common substance. 

Behold him, while he is "doing" — it seemeth rather a 
refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive 

20 to. How equably he twirleth round the string ! — Now he is 
just done. To see the extreme sensibihty of that tender age, 
he hath wept out his pretty eyes — radiant jellies — shooting 
stars — 

See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth ! — 

25 wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness 
and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? 
Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obsti- 
nate, disagreeable animal — wallowing in all manner of filthy 
conversation — from these sins he is happily snatched away — 

30 Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, 

Death came with timely care — 

his memory is odoriferous — no clown curseth, while his stom- 
ach half rejecteth, the rank bacon — no coalheaver bolteth him 



A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 151 

in reeking sausages — he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful 
stomach of the judicious epicure — and for such a tomb might 
be content to die. 

He is the best of sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed 
almost too transcendent — a delight, if not sinful, yet so like 5 
to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would do 
well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth 
and excoriateth the lips that approach her — like lovers' kisses, 
she biteth — she is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierce- 
ness and insanity of her relish — but she stoppeth at the palate 10 
— she meddleth not with the appetite — and the coarsest 
hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop. 

Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative of the 
appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the cen- 
sorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the 15 
weakling refuseth not his mild juices. 

UnHke to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues 
and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled 
without hazard, he is — good throughout. No part of him is 
better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little 20 
means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. 
He is all neighbours' fare. 

I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a 
share of the good things of this Hfe which fall to their lot (few 
as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great 25 
an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper 
satisfactions, as in mine own. " Presents," I often say, "endear 
Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door 
chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"), capons, plovers, brawn, 
barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I 30 
love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. 
But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, 
"give everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks 
it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to 



152 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

extradomiciliate, or send out of the house, sHghtingly (under 
pretext of friendship, or I know not what), a blessing so par- 
ticularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual 
palate. — It argues an insensibility. 
5 I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. 
My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a 
holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing into my 
pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum- 
cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to school (it was over 

10 London Bridge) a grey-headed old beggar saluted me (I have 
no doubt at this time of day that he was a counterfeit). I 
had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of self- 
denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, schoolboy-like, I 
made him a present of — the whole cake! I walked on a 

15 little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet 
soothing of self-satisfaction ; but before I had got to the end 
of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into 
tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, 
to go and give her good gift away to a stranger, that I had 

20 never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I 
knew ; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be 
taking in thinking that I — I myself, and not another — would 
eat her nice cake — and what should I say to her the next 
time I saw her — how naughty I was to part with her pretty 

25 present — and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon 
my recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had taken 
in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, 
and how disappointed she would feel that I had never had a 
bit of it in my mouth at last — and I blamed my impertinent 

30 spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, 
and above all I wished never to see the face again of that 
insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. 

Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these 
tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something 



ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN 1 53 

of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age 
of discipHne is gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a 
philosophical light merely) what effect this process might have 
towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance, naturally so 
mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like 5 
refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we con- 
demn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the 
practice. It might impart a gusto — 

I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young 
students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with 10 
much learning and pleasantry on both sides, " Whether, sup- 
posing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death by 
whipping {^per flagellatiofiem extremani) superadded a pleas- 
ure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible 
suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in 15 
using that method of putting the animal to death? " I forget 
the decision. 

His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread 
crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of 
mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the 20 
whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your pal- 
ate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations 
of the rank and guilty garhc ; you cannot poison them, or 
make them stronger than they are — but consider, he is a 
weakling — a flower. 25 



XX. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN 

Not many nights ago I had come home from seeing this 
extraordinary performer in Cockletop ; and when I retired to 
my pillow, his whimsical image still stuck by me, in a manner 
as to threaten sleep. In vain I tried to divest myself of it, by 
conjuring up the most opposite associations. I resolved to be 30 



154 ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN 

serious. I raised up the gravest topics of life ; private misery, 
public calamity. All would not do. 

There the antic sate 



5 his queer visnomy — his bewildering costume — all the strange 
things which he had raked together — his serpentine rod, 
swagging about in his pocket — Cleopatra's tear, and the rest 
of his relics — O'Keefe's wild farce, and his wilder commen- 
tary — till the passion of laughter, hke grief in excess, reheved 

lo itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep which in the first 
instance it had driven away. 

But I was not to escape so easily. No sooner did I fall into 
slumbers, than the same image, only more perplexing, assailed 
me in the shape of dreams. Not one Munden, but five hun- 

15 dred, were dancing before me, like the faces which, whether 
you will or no, come when you have been taking opium 
— all the strange combinations, which this strangest of all 
strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance into, from 
the day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of the 

20 town for the loss of the now almost forgotten Edwin. O for 
the power of the pencil to have fixed them when I awoke ! 
A season or two since there was exhibited a Hogarth gallery. 
I do not see why there should not be a Munden gallery. 
In richness and variety the latter would not fall far short of 

25 the former. 

There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but 
what a one it is !) of Liston ; but Munden has none that you 
can properly pin down, and call his. When you think he has 
exhausted his battery of looks, in unaccountable warfare with 

30 your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an entirely new set of 
features, like Hydra. He is not one, but legion. Not so much 
a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied 
like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, 



ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN I55 

literally makes faces : applied to any other person, the phrase 
is a mere figure, denoting certain modifications of the human 
countenance. Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, 
as his friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as 
easily. I should not be surprised to see him some day put 5 
out the head of a river-horse ; or come forth a pewit, or lap- 
wing, some feathered metamorphosis. 

I have seen this gifted actor in Sir Christopher Curry — in 
Old Dornton — diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made 
the pulse of a crowded theatre beat like that of one man ; when 10 
he has come in aid of the pulpit, doing good to the moral 
heart of a people. I have seen some faint approaches to 
this sort of excellence in other players. But in the grand 
grotesque of farce, Munden stands out as single and unac- 
companied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to tell, had no 15 
followers. The school of Munden began, and must end with 
himself. 

Can any man wonder^ like him? can any man see ghosts, 
like him? ox fight with his own shadow — "sessa" — as he 
does in that strangely-neglected thing, the Cobbler of Preston 20 
— where his alternations from the Cobbler to the Magnifico, 
and from the Magnifico to the Cobbler, keep the brain of the 
spectator in as wild a ferment, as if some Arabian Night were 
being acted before him. Who like him can throw, or ever 
attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over the common- 25 
est daily-life objects? A table, or a joint stool, in his concep- 
tion, rises into a dignity equivalent to Cassiopeia's chair. It 
is invested with constellatory importance. You could not speak 
of it with more deference, if it were mounted into the firma- 
ment. A beggar in the hands of Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, 30 
rose the Patriarch of Poverty. So the gusto of Munden anti- 
quates and ennobles what it touches. His pots and his ladles 
are as grand and primal as the seething-pots and hooks seen 
in old prophetic vision. A tub of butter, contemplated by 



156 MUNDEN'S FAREWELL 

him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg of 
mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the com- 
monplace materials of life, Hke primeval man with the sun and 
stars about him. 



XXI. MUNDEN'S FAREWELL 

5 The regular playgoers ought to put on mourning, for the 
king of broad comedy is dead to the drama ! — Alas ! — 
Munden is no more ! — give sorrow vent. He may yet walk 
the town, pace the pavement in a seeming existence — eat, 
drink, and nod to his friends in all the affectation of life — 

10 but Munden, — the Munden ! — Munden, who with the bunch 
of countenances, the bouquet of faces, is gone for ever from 
the lamps, and, as far as comedy is concerned, is as dead as 
Garrick ! When an actor retires (we will put the suicide as 
mildly as possible) how many worthy persons perish with him ! 

15 — With Munden, — Sir Peter Teazle must experience a shock 
— Sir Robert Bramble gives up the ghost — Crack ceases to 
breathe. Without Munden what becomes of Dozey ? Where 
shall we seek Jemmy Jumps ? Nipperkin and a thousand of 
such admirable fooleries fall to nothing, and the departure 

20 therefore of such an actor as Munden is a dramatic calamity. 
On the night that this inestimable humourist took farewell of 
the public, he also took his benefit : — a benefit in which the 
public assuredly did not participate. The play was Coleman's 
Poor Gentleman, with Tom Dibdin's farce of Past Ten o'clock. 

25 Reader, we all know Munden in Sir Robert Bramble, and Old 
Tobacco complexioned Dozey ; — we all have seen the old 
hearty baronet in his Hght sky-blue coat and genteel cocked 
hat ; and we have all seen the weather-beaten old pensioner, 
Dear Old Dozey, tacking about the stage in that intense blue 

30 sea livery — drunk as heart could wish, and right valorous in 



MUNDEN'S FAREWELL 157 

memory. On this night Munden seemed like the Gladiator 
" to rally life's whole energies to die," and as we were pres- 
ent at this great display of his powers, and as this will be 
the last opportunity that will ever be afforded us to speak of 
this admirable performer, we shall "consecrate," as Old John 5 
Buncle says, "^ paragraph to him." 

The house was full, — ////// — pshaw! that's an empty 
word ! — The house was stuffed, crammed with people — 
crammed from the swing door of the pit to the back seat in 
the banished 07te shilling. A quart of audience may be said lo 
(vintner-like, may it be said) to have been squeezed into 
a pint of theatre. Every hearty play-going Londoner, who 
remembered Munden years agone, mustered up his courage 
and his money for this benefit — and middle-aged people 
were therefore by no means scarce. The comedy chosen for 15 
the occasion, is one that travels a long way without a guard ; 
it is not until the third or fourth act, we think, that Sir Robert 
Bramble appears on the stage. When he entered, his recep- 
tion was earnest, — noisy, — outrageous, — waving of hats and 
handkerchiefs, — deafening shouts, — clamorous beating of 20 
sticks, — all the various ways in which the heart is accus- 
tomed to manifest its joy were had recourse to on this 
occasion. Mrs. Bamfield worked away with a sixpenny fan 
till she scudded only under bare poles. Mr. Whittington 
wore out the ferule of a new nine-and-sixpenny umbrella. 25 
Gratitude did great damage on the joyful occasion. 

The old performer, the veteran, as he appropriately called 
himself in the farewell speech, was plainly overcome ; he 
pressed his hands together, he planted one solidly on his 
breast, he bowed, he sidled, he cried ! When the noise 30 
subsided (which it invariably does at last) the comedy pro- 
ceeded, and Munden gave an admirable picture of the rich, 
eccentric, charitable old bachelor baronet, who goes about 
with Humphrey Dobbin at his heels, and philanthropy in his 



158 MUNDEN'S FAREWELL 

heart. How crustily and yet how kindly he takes Humphrey's 
contradictions ! How readily he puts himself into an attitude 
for arguing ! How tenderly he gives a loose to his heart on 
the apprehension of Frederick's duel. In truth he played 
5 Sir Robert in his very ripest manner, and it was impossible 
not to feel in the very midst of pleasure regret; that Munden 
should then be before us for the last time. 

In the farce he became richer and richer; Old DOzey is 
a plant from Greenwich. The bronzed face — and neck to 

10 match — the long curtain of a coat — the straggling white 
hair — the propensity, the determined attachment to grog, 
are all from Greenwich. Munden, as Dozey, seems never to 
have been out of action, sun, and drink. He looks (alas he 
looked) fireproof. His face and throat were dried like a 

15 raisin, and his legs walked under the rum-and-water with all 
the indecision which that inestimable beverage usually inspires. 
It is truly tacking, not walking. He steers at a table, and the 
tide of grog now and then bears him off the point. On this 
night, he seemed to us to be doomed to fall in action, and 

20 we therefore looked at him, as some of the Victory's crew are 
said to have gazed upon Nelson, with a consciousness that his 
ardour and his uniform were worn for the last time. In the 
scene where Dozey describes a sea fight, the actor never was 
greater, and he seemed the personification of an old seventy- 

25 four ! His coat hung like a flag at his poop ! His phiz was 
not a whit less highly coloured than one of those lustrous vis- 
ages which generally superintend the head of a ship ! There 
was something cumbrous, indecisive, and awful in his veerings ! 
Once afloat, it appeared impossible for him to come to his 

30 moorings ; once at anchor, it did not seem an easy thing to 
get him under weigh ! 

The time, however, came for the fall of the curtain, and for 
the fall of Munden ! The farce of the night was finished. The 
farce of the long forty years' play was over ! He stepped 



A CHAPTER ON EARS 1 59 

forward, not as Dozey, but as Munden, and we heard him 
address us from the stage for the last time. He trusted, 
unwisely we think, to a written paper. He 7'ead ot "heart-felt 
recollections," and "indelible impressions." He stammered, 
and he pressed his heart, — and put on his spectacles, — and 
blundered his written gratitudes, — and wiped his eyes, and 
bowed — and stood, — and at last staggered away for ever! 
The plan of his farewell was bad, but the long life of excellence 
which really made his farewell pathetic, overcame all defects, 
and the people and Joe Munden parted like levers ! Well ! 
Farewell to the Rich Old Heart ! May thy retirement be as 
full of repose, as thy public life was full of excellence ! We 
must all have our farewell benefit in our turn. 



XXH. A CHAPTER ON EARS 

I HAVE no ear. — 

Mistake me not, reader, — nor imagine that I am by nature 15 
destitute of those exterior twin appendages, hanging ornaments 
and (architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the human 
capital. Better my mother had never borne me. — I am, I 
think, rather delicately than copiously provided with those 
conduits ; and I feel no disposition to envy the mule for his 20 
plenty, or the mole for her exactness, in those ingenious laby- 
rinthine inlets — those indispensable side-intelligencers. 

Neither have I incurred, or done anything to incur, with 
Defoe, that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to 
draw upon assurance — to feel "quite unabashed," and at 25 
ease upon that article. I was never, I thank my stars, in the 
pillory ; nor, if I read them aright, is it within the compass of 
my destiny, that I ever should be. 

When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will under- 
stand me to mean — for niicsic. — To say that this heart never 30 



l60 A CHAPTER ON EARS 

melted at the concourse of sweet sounds, would be a foul self- 
libel. — " Water pa?'ted from the sea ^^ never fails to move it 
strangely. So does "/;/ infancy^ But they were used to be 
sung at her harpsichord (the old-fashioned instrument in vogue 
5 in those days) by a gentlewoman — the gentlest, sure, that 
ever merited the appellation — the sweetest — why should I 

hesitate to name Mrs. S , once the blooming Fanny 

Weatheral of the Temple — who had power to thrill the soul 
of Elia, small imp as he was, even in his long coats ; and to 

10 make him glow, tremble, and blush with a passion, that not 
faintly indicated the day-spring of that absorbing sentiment, 
which was afterwards destined to overwhelm and subdue his 

nature quite, for Alice W n. 

I even think that seiitiinentally I am disposed to harmony. 

15 But 07'ganicaUy I am incapable of a tune. I have been prac- 
tising ^'- God save the King'^ all my life; whistling and hum- 
ming of it over to myself in solitary corners; and am not yet 
arrived, they tell me, within many quavers of it. Yet hath the 
• loyalty of Elia never been impeached. 

20 I am not without suspicion that I have an undeveloped 
faculty of music within me. For, thrumming, in my wild way, 
on my friend A.'s piano, the other morning, while he was 
engaged in an adjoining parlour, — on his return he was 
pleased to say, '•^ he thought it could not be the maid!'' On 

25 his first surprise at hearing the keys touched in somewhat an 
airy and masterful way, not dreaming of me, his suspicions 
had lighted OTi Jenny. But a grace snatched from a superior 
refinement, soon convinced him that some being, — technic- 
ally perhaps deficient, but higher informed from a principle 

30 common to all the fine arts, — had swayed the keys to a 
mood which Jenny, with all her (less-cultivated) enthusiasm, 
could never have elicited from them. I mention this as a 
proof of my friend's penetration, and not with any view of 
disparaging Jenny. 



A CHAPTER ON EARS l6l 

Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet 
have I taken some pains) what a note in music is; or how 
one note should differ from another. Much less in voices can 
I distinguish a soprano from a tenor. Only sometimes the 
thorough bass I contrive to guess at, from its being super- 5 
eminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, however, for 
my misappHcation of the simplest terms of that which I dis- 
claim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce know what to 
say I am ignorant of. I hate, perhaps, by misnomers. Sos- 
teniito and adagio stand in the like relation of obscurity to 10 
me ; and Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, is as conjuring as Baralipton. 

It is hard to stand alone — in an age like this, — (consti- 
tuted to the quick and critical perception of all harmonious 
combinations, I verily believe, beyond all preceding ages, 
since Jubal stumbled upon the gamut) — to remain as it were 1 5 
singly unimpressible to the magic influences of an art which 
is said to have such an especial stroke at soothing, elevating, 
and refining the passions. — Yet rather than break the candid 
current of my confessions, I must avow to you, that I have 
received a great deal more pain than pleasure from this so 20 
cried-up faculty. 

I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's 
hammer, in a warm summer noon, will fret me into more than 
midsummer madness. But those unconnected, unset sounds 
are nothing to the measured malice of music. The ear is pas- 25 
sive to those single strokes ; willingly enduring stripes, while 
it hath no task to con. To music it cannot be passive. It 
will strive — mine at least will — 'spite of its inaptitude, to 
thrid the maze ; like an unskilled eye painfully poring upon 
hieroglyphics. I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for 30 
sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into 
the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace myself 
with sounds, which I was not obhged to follow, and get rid of 
the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention ! 



l62 'A CHAPTER ON EARS 

I take refuge in the unpretending assemblage of honest 
common-life sounds ; — and the purgatory of the Enraged 
Musician becomes my paradise. 

I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the purposes 

5 of the cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the auditory 
in the pit (what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing Audience !) 
immovable, or affecting some faint emotion, — till (as some 
have said, that our occupations in the next world will be but 
a shadow of what delighted us in this) I have imagined myself 

o in some cold Theatre in Hades, where some of Xkit forms of 
the earthly one should be kept up, with none of the enjoyment ; 
or like that — 



Party in a parlour, 

All silent, and all damned ! 

15 Above all those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, 
as they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension. 
— Words are something ; but to be exposed to an endless 
battery of mere sounds ; to be long a dying, to lie stretched 
upon a rack of roses ; to keep up languor by unintermitted 

20 effort; to pile honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to 
an interminable tedious sweetness ; to fill up sound with feel- 
ing, and strain ideas to keep pace with it ; to gaze on empty 
frames, and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to 
read a book all stops, and be obliged to supply the verbal 

25 matter ; to invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague 
gestures of an inexplicable rambling mime — these are faint 
shadows of what I have undergone from a series of the ablest- 
executed pieces of this empty inst7-umental music. 

I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experi- 

30 enced something vastly lulling and agreeable : — afterwards 
followeth the languor, and the oppression. Like that dis- 
appointing book in Patmos ; or, like the comings on of 
melancholy, described by Burton, doth music make her first 



A CHAPTER ON EARS 163 

insinuating approaches : — " Most pleasant it is to such as are 
melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt 
wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate upon 
some dehghtsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him 
most, amabilis insania, and nieniis gratissimus ei'ror. A most 5 
incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling 
to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they 
suppose, and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done. 
— So delightsome these toys at first, they could spend whole 
days and nights without sleep, even whole years in such con- 10 
templations, and fantastical meditations, which are like so 
many dreams, and will hardly be drawn from them — winding 
and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and still pleasing 
their humours, until at last the scene turns upon a sudden, 
and they being now habitated to such meditations and sohtary 15 
places, can endure no company, can think of nothing but 
harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrus- 
tims pudor, discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise 
them on a sudden, and they can think of nothing else : con- 
tinually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes open, but this 20 
infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies 
their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds ; 
which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions, they can 
avoid, they cannot be rid of, they cannot resist." 

Something like this " scene- turning " I have experienced "25 
at the evening parties, at the house of my good Catholic 

friend Nov ; who, by the aid of a capital organ, himself 

the most finished of players, converts his drawing-room into 
a chapel, his week days into Sundays, and these latter into 
minor heavens.-^ 30 

When my friend commences upon one of those solemn 
anthems, which peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, 

1 1 have been there, and still would go ; 
'T is like a little heaven below. — Dr. Watts. 



l64 A CHAPTER ON EARS 

rambling in the side aisles of the dim abbey, some five and 
thirty years since, waking a new sense, and putting a soul of 
old religion into my young apprehension — (whether it be 
that, in which the psalmist, weary of the persecutions of bad 
5 men, wisheth to himself dove's wings — or that other, which, 
with a like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth by what 
means the young man shall best cleanse his mind) — a holy 
calm pervadeth me. — I am for the time 

rapt above earth, 



10 And possess joys not promised at my birth. 

But when this master of the spell, not content to have laid 
a soul prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more bliss 
than Hes in her capacity to receive, — impatient to overcome 
her "earthly" with his "heavenly," — still pouring in, for 

15 protracted hours, fresh waves and fresh from the sea of sound, 
or from that inexhausted German ocean, above which, in 
triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those Arions Haydn 
and Mozart, with their attendant tritons. Bach, Beethoven^ 
and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up would 

20 but plunge me again in the deeps, — I stagger under the 
weight of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wit's end ; — 
clouds, as of frankincense, oppress me — priests, altars, cen- 
sers, dazzle before me — the genius of his religion hath me in 
her toils — a shadowy triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, 

25 late so naked, so ingenuous — he is Pope, — and by him sits, 
like as in the anomaly of dreams, a she-Pope too, — tri-coro- 
neted like himself ! — I am converted, and yet a Protestant ; 
— at once malleus hereticoriim, and myself grand heresiarch : 
or three heresies centre in my person : I am Marcion, Ebion, 

30 and Cerinthus — Gog and Magog — what not? — till the com- 
ing in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, 
and a draught of true Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my 
friend shows himself no bigot) at once reconciles me to the 



A CHAPTER ON EARS 165 

rationalities of a purer faith ; and restores to me the genuine 
unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced host and 
hostess. 

P.S. — A writer, whose real name it seems is Boldero, but 
who has been entertaining the town for the last twelve months 5 
with some very pleasant lucubrations under the assumed sig- 
nature of Leigh Himt^ in his " Indicator " of the 31st January 
last has thought fit to insinuate that I, Elia, do not write the 
little sketches which bear my signature in this magazine, but 

that the true author of them is a Mr. L b. Observe the 10 

critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny, 
— on the very eve of the publication of our last number, — 
affording no scope for explanation for a full month ; during 
which time I must needs He writhing and tossing under the 
cruel imputation of nonentity. Good Heavens ! that a plain 15 
man must not be allowed to be 

They call this an age of personahty ; but surely this spirit 
of anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. 

Take away my moral reputation, — I may live to discredit 
that calumny ; injure my literary fame, — I may write that 20 
up again; but, when a gentleman is robbed of his identity, 
where is he? 

Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and 
perishing trifle at the best ; but here is an assassin who aims 
at our very essence ; who not only forbids us to be any longer, 25 
but to have been at all. Let our ancestors look to it. 

Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes 
Street, Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six-and-forty 
years ago, nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, 
where we flourished four centuries back, before the barbarous 30 

1 Clearly a fictitious appellation ; for, if we admit the latter of these 
names to be in a manner English, what is Leigh ? Christian nomen- 
clature knows no such. 



l66 ALL FOOLS' DAY 

name of Boldero^ was known to a European mouth, nothing? 
Was the goodly scion of our name, transplanted into England 
in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing? Are the archives 
of the steelyard, in succeeding reigns (if haply they survive 
5 the fury of our envious enemies), showing that we flourished 
in prime repute, as merchants, down to the period of the 
Commonwealth, nothing? 

Why, then the world, and all that's in 't, is nothing; 
The covering sky is nothing ; Bohemia nothing. 

lo I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to 
move me so.^ 



XXIII. ALL FOOLS' DAY 

The comphments of the season to my worthy masters, and 
a merry first of April to us all ! 

Many happy returns of this day to you — and you — and 

!<,)'(??/, sir^ — nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face up- 
on the matter. Do not we know one another ? what need 
of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch of //la/ 
same — you understand me — a speck of the motley. Be- 
shrew the man who on such a day as this, the general festival, 

20 should affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. 
I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it. He 
that meets me in the forest to-day, shall meet with no wise- 
acre, I can tell him. Stiiltiis sum. Translate me that, and 
take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains. What, 

25 man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at the 
least computation. 

1 It is clearly of transatlantic origin. 

2 This postscript was added to the original essay in the Londoji, but 
was omitted by the author in the edition of 1823. — Ed. 



ALL FOOLS' DAY 167 

Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry — we will drink 
no wise, melancholy, politic port on this day — and let us troll 
the catch of Amiens — due ad me — dice ad me — how goes it ? 

Here shall he see 
Gross fools as he. 

Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authen- 
tically, who was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would cer- 
tainly give him in a bumper. Marry, of the present breed, I 
think I could without much difficulty name you the party. 

Remove your cap a little further if you please ; it hides my 
bauble. And now each man bestride his hobby, aud dust away 
his bells to what tune he pleases. I will give you for my part, 

the crazy old church clock, 



And the bewilder'd chimes. 

Good master Empedocles, you are welcome. It is long since 15 
you went a salamander-gathering down ^tna. Worse than 
samphire-picking by some odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship 
did not singe your mustachios. 

Ha ! Cleombrotus ! and what salads in faith did you Mght 
upon at the bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, 20 
I take it, of the disinterested sect of the Calenturists. 

Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, 
bring in your trowel, most Ancient Grand ! You have claim to 
a seat here at my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. 
You left your work, if I remember Herodotus correctly, at 25 
eight hundred million toises, or thereabout, above the level of 
the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to 
call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the low grounds 
of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by a 
rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our 30 
Monument on Fish-Street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we 
think it somewhat. 



l68 ALL FOOLS' DAY 

What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears ? — cry, baby, 
put its finger in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as 
an orange, pretty moppet ! 

Mister Adams 'odso, I honour your coat — pray do us 

5 the favour to read to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress 
Slipslop — the twenty and second in your portmanteau there 
— on Female Incontinence — the same — it will come in most 
irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the time of the day. 

Good Master Raymund Lully, you look wise. Pray correct 
lo that error. 

Duns, spare your definitions. I must fine you a bumper, or 
a paradox. We will have nothing said or done syllogistically 
this day. Remove those logical forms, waiter, that no gen- 
tleman break the tender shins of his apprehension stumbling 
15 across them. 

Master Stephen, you are late. — Ha ! Cokes, is it you? — 
Aguecheek, my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you. — 
Master Shallow, your worship's poor servant to command. — 
Master Silence, I will use few words with you. — Slender, it 
20 shall go hard if I edge not you in somewhere. — You six will 
engross all the poor wit of the company to-day. — I know it, I 
know it. 

Ha ! honest R , my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time 

out of mind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not 
25 over-new, threadbare as thy stories : — what dost thou flitting 
about the world at this rate ? — Thy customers are extinct, de- 
funct, bed-rid, have ceased to read long ago. — Thou gcest still 
among them, seeing if, peradventure, thou canst hawk a vol- 
ume or two. — Good Granville S , thy last patron, is flown. 

30 King Pandion, he is dead, 

All thy friends are lapt in lead. — 

Nevertheless, noble R , come in, and take your seat here, 

between Armado and Quisada : for in true courtesy, in gravity, 



ALL FOOLS' DAY 169 

in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, 
in the goodly ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the com- 
mendation of wise sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those 
accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me 
for ever, when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, 5 
which declares that he might be happy with either^ situated 
between these two ancient spinsters — when I forget the inim- 
itable formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the 
one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile — as if 
Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if 10 
thousands of periods must revolve, before the mirror of cour- 
tesy could have given his invidious preference between a pair 
of so goodly-propertied and meritorious-equal damsels. 

To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our 
Fools' Banquet beyond its appropriate day, — for I fear the 15 
second of April is not many hours distant — in sober verity I 
will confess a truth to thee, reader, I love a Fool — as natu- 
rally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a child, with 
child-like apprehensions, that dived not below the surface of 
the matter, I read those Parables — not guessing at their 20 
involved wisdom — I had more yearnings towards that simple 
architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I entertained 
for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hard cen- 
sure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent ; and 
— prizing their simpUcity beyond the more provident, and, to 25 
my apprehension, somewhat unfeminine wariness, of their com- 
petitors — I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a fendre, 
for those 'five thoughtless virgins. — I have never made an 
acquaintance since, that lasted, or a friendship, that answered, 
with any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their 30 
characters. I venerate an honest obliquity of understanding. 
The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your com- 
pany, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or 



I/O THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable hallucina- 
tion warrants ; the security, which a word out of season ratifies. 
And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, 
if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mix- 

5 ture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. It 
is observed, that " the foohsher the fowl or fish, — woodcocks, 
— dotterels, — cod's-heads, &c., the finer the flesh thereof," 
and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such 
whereof the world is not worthy ? and what have been some of 

o the kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darhngs 
of absurdity, minions of the goddess, and her white boys? — 
Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, 
it is you, and not I, that are the Aj^nV Fool. 



XXIV. THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

My reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical. 

15 Odd, out of the way, old Enghsh plays and treatises, have sup- 
plied me with most of my notions and ways of feeling. In 
every thing that relates to science^ I am a whole Encyclopaedia 
behind the rest of the world. I should have scarcely cut a 
figure among the franklins, or country gentlemen, in King 

20 John's days. I know less geography than a schoolboy of six 
weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic 
as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into 
Asia; whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great 
divisions ; nor can form the remotest conjecture of the posi- 

25 tion of New South Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. ■ Yet do I 
hold a correspondence with a very dear friend in the first- 
named of these two Terrae Incognitse. I have no astronomy. 
I do not know where to look for the Bear, or Charles's Wain ; 
the place of any star ; or the name of any of them at- sight. I 

30 guess at Venus only by her brightness — and if the sun on 



THE OLD AND^THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 171 

some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in 
the West, I verily believe, that, while all the world were gasp- 
ing in apprehension about me, I alone should stand unterrified, 
from sheer incuriosity and want of observation. Of history and 
chronology I possess some vague points, such as one cannot 5 
help picking up in the course of miscellaneous study; but I 
never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, even of my own 
country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four great 
monarchies; and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the 
Persian, floats SiS first m my fancy. I make the widest conjee- 10 
tures concerning Egypt, and her shepherd kings. My friend 
M., with great painstaking, got me to think I understood the 
first proposition in Euclid, but gave me over in despair at the 
second. I am entirely unacquainted with the modern lan- 
guages ; and, like a better man than myself, have "■ small Latin 15 
and less Greek." I am a stranger to the shapes and texture of 
the commonest trees, herbs, flowers — not from the circum- 
stance of my being town-born — for I should have brought the 
same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first seen 
it "on Devon's leafy shores," — and am no less at a loss 20 
among purely town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes. 
— Not that I affect ignorance — but my head has not many 
mansions, nor spacious ; and I have been obliged to fill it with 
such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching. I some- 
times wonder, how I have passed my probation with so httle 25 
discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre a stock. 
But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little knowl- 
edge, and scarce be found out, in mixed company ; everybody 
is so much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a 
display of your acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no 30 
shuffling. The truth will out. There is nothing which I dread 
so much, as the being left alone for a quarter of an hour with 
a sensible, well-informed man, that does not know me. I lately 
got into a dilemma of this sort. — 



1/2 THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

In one of my daily jaunts between Bishopsgate and Shackle- 
well, the coach stopped to take up a staid-looking gentleman, 
about the wrong side of thirty, who was giving his parting direc- 
tions (while the steps were adjusting), in a tone of mild 
5 authority, to a tall youth, who seemed to be neither his clerk, 
his son, nor his servant, but something partaking of all three. 
The youth was dismissed, and we drove on. As we were the 
sole passengers, he naturally enough addressed his conversa- 
tion to me ; and we discussed the merits of the fare, the civil- 

10 ity and punctuality of the driver; the circumstance of an 
opposition coach having been lately set up, with the proba- 
bilities of its success — to all which I was enabled to return 
pretty satisfactory answers, having been drilled into this kind 
of etiquette by some years' daily practice of riding to and fro 

1 5 in the stage aforesaid — when he suddenly alarmed me by a 
startling question, whether I had seen the show of prize cattle 
that morning in Smithfield ? Now as I had not seen it, and do 
not greatly care for such sort of exhibitions, I was obliged to 
return a cold negative. He seemed a little mortified, as well 

20 as astonished, at my declaration, as (it appeared) he was just 
come fresh from the sight, and doubtless had hoped to com- 
pare notes on the subject. However he assured me that I had 
lost a fine treat, as it far exceeded the show of last year. We 
were now approaching Norton Folgate, when the sight of some 

25 shop-goods ticketed freshened him up into a dissertation upon 
the cheapness of cottons this spring. I was now a little in 
heart, as the nature of my morning avocations had brought me 
into some sort of familiarity with the raw material ; and I was 
surprised to find how eloquent I was becoming on the state of 

30 the India market — when, presently, he dashed my incipient 
vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whether I had ever 
made any calculation as to the value of the rental of all the retail 
shops in London. Had he asked of me, what song the Sirens 
sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself 



THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 1 73 

among women, I might, with Sir Thomas Browne, have haz- 
arded a " wide solution." ^ My companion saw my embarrass- 
ment, and, the almshouses beyond Shoreditch just coming in 
view, with great good-nature and dexterity shifted his con- 
versation to the subject of pubhc charities ; which led to the 5 
comparative merits of provision for the poor in past and pres- 
ent times, with observations on the old monastic institutions, 
and charitable orders ; — but, finding me rather dimly impressed 
with some glimmering notions from old poetic associations, 
than strongly fortified with any speculations reducible to calcu- 10 
lation on the subject, he gave the matter up ; and, the country 
beginning to open more and more upon us, as we approached 
the turnpike at Kingsland (the destined termination of his 
journey), he put a home thrust upon me, in the most unfortu- 
nate position he could have chosen, by advancing some queries 15 
relative to the North Pole Expedition. While I was muttering 
out something about the Panorama of those strange regions 
(Avhich I had actually seen), by way of parrying the question, 
the coach stopping relieved me from any further apprehensions. 
My companion getting out, left me in the comfortable posses- 20 
sion of my ignorance ; and I heard him, as he went off, put- 
ting questions to an outside passenger, who had alighted with 
him, regarding an epidemic disorder that had been rife about 
Dalston, and which, my friend assured him, had gone through 
five or six schools in that neighbourhood. The truth now 25 
flashed upon me, that my companion was a schoolmaster ; and 
that the youth, whom he had parted from at our first acquaint- 
ance, must have been one of the bigger boys, or the usher. — 
He was evidently a kind-hearted man, who did not seem so 
much desirous of provoking discussion by the questions which 30 
he put, as of obtaining information at any rate. It did not 
appear that he took any interest, either, in such kind of 
inquiries, for their own sake ; but that he was in some way 
1 C/r7Z Burial. 



174 THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

bound to seek for knowledge. A greenish-coloured coat, which 
he had on, forbade me to surmise that he was a clergyman. 
The adventure gave birth to some reflections on the difference 
between persons of his profession in past and present times. 
5 Rest to the souls of those fine old Pedagogues ; the breed, 
long since extinct, of the Lilys, and the Linacres : who believ- 
ing that all learning was contained in the languages which they 
taught, and despising every other acquirement as superficial 
and useless, came to their task as to a sport ! Passing from 

lo infancy to age, they dreamed away all their days as in a 
grammar-school. Revolving in a perpetual cycle of declensions, 
conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies ; renewing constantly 
the occupations which had charmed their studious childhood ; 
rehearsing continually the part of the past; life must have 

15 slipped from them at last like one day. They were always in 
their first garden, reaping harvests of their golden time, among 
their Flori and their Spici-legia ; in Arcadia still, but kings ; 
the ferule of their sway not much harsher, but of like dignity 
with that mild sceptre attributed to King Basileus ; the Greek 

20 and Latin, their stately Pamela and their Philoclea ; with the 
occasional duncery of some untoward Tyro, serving for a 
refreshing interlude of a Mopsa, or a clown Damsetas ! 

With what a savour doth the Preface to Colet's, or (as it is 
sometimes called) Paul's Accidence, set forth ! " To exhort 

25 every man to the learning of grammar, that intendeth to attain 
the understanding of the tongues, wherein is contained a great 
treasury of wisdom and knowledge, it would seem but vain and 
lost labour ; for so much as it is known, that nothing can 
surely be ended, whose beginning is either feeble or faulty ; 

30 and no building be perfect, whereas the foundation and ground- 
work is ready to fall, and unable to uphold the burden of the 
frame." How well doth this stately preamble (comparable to 
those which Milton commendeth as *' having been the usage 
to prefix to some solemn law, then first promulgated by Solon, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 1 75 

or Lycurgus") correspond with and illustrate that pious zeal 
for conformity, expressed in a succeeding clause, which would 
fence about grammar- rules with the severity of faith-articles ! 
— " as for the diversity of grammars, it is well profitably taken 
away by the king's majesties wisdom, who foreseeing the incon- 5 
venience, and favourably providing the remedie, caused one 
kind of grammar by sundry learned men to be diligently drawn, 
and so to be set out, only everywhere to be taught for the use 
of learners, and for the hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." 
What d, gusto in that which follows : "wherein it is profitable 10 
that he [the pupil] can orderly decline his noun, and his verb." 
His noun ! 

The fine dream is fading away fast ; and the least concern 
of a teacher in the present day is to inculcate grammar-rules. 

The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little of 15 
everything, because his pupil is required not to be entirely 
ignorant of anything. He must be superficially, if I may so say, 
omniscient. He is to know something of pneumatics ; of chem- 
istry j of whatever is curious, or proper to excite the attention 
of the youthful mind ; an insight into mechanics is desirable, 20 
with a touch of statistics ; the quality of soils, &c., botany, the 
constitution of his country, atm multis aliis. You may get a 
notion of some part of his expected duties by consulting the 
famous Tractate on Education addressed to Mr. Hartlib. 

All these things — these, or the desire of them — he is 25 
expected to instil, not by set lessons from professors, which he 
may charge in the bill, but at school-intervals, as he walks the 
streets, or saunters through green fields (those natural instruct- 
ors), with his pupils. The least part of what is expected from 
him, is to be done in school-hours. He must insinuate knowl- 30 
edge at the mollia tempora fandi. He must seize every occa- 
sion — the season of the year — the time of the day — a pass- 
ing cloud — a rainbow — a waggon of hay — a regiment of 
soldiers going by — to inculcate something useful. He can 



iy6 THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

receive no pleasure from a casual glimpse of nature, but must 
catch at it as an object of instruction. He must interpret 
beauty into the picturesque. He cannot rehsh a beggar-man, 
or a gipsy, for thinking of the suitable improvement. Nothing 
5 comes to him, not spoiled by the sophisticating medium of 
moral uses. The Universe — that Great Book, as it has been 
called — is to him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a book, 
out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distast- 
ing schoolboys. — Vacations themselves are none to him, he is 

lo only rather worse off than before ; for commonly he has some 
intrusive upper-boy fastened upon him at such times ; some 
cadet of a great family ; some neglected lump of nobility, or 
gentry ; that he must drag after him to the play, to the Pano- 
rama, to Mr. Hartley's Orrery, to the Panopticon, or into the 

15 country, to a friend's house, or his favourite watering-place. 
Wherever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. A boy is 
at his board, and in his path, and in all his movements. He 
is boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy. 

Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates ; 

20 but they are unwholesome companions for grown people. The 
restraint is felt no less on the one side, than on the other. — 
Even a child, that " plaything for an hour," tires always. The 
noises of children, playing their own fancies — as I now hearken 
to them by fits, sporting on the green before my window, while 

25 I am engaged in these grave speculations at my neat suburban 
retreat at Shacklewell — by distance made more sweet — inex- 
pressibly take from the labour of my task. It is like writing 
to music. They seem to modulate my periods. They ought at 
least to do so — for in the voice of that tender age there is a 

30 kind of poetry, far unlike the harsh prose-accents of man's 
conversation. — I should but spoil their sport, and diminish my 
own sympathy for them, by mingling in their pastime. 

I would not be domesticated all my days with a person of 
very superior capacity to my own — not, if I know myself at 



THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER I// 

all, from any considerations of jealousy, or self-comparison, for 
the occasional communion with such minds has constituted the 
fortune and f ehcity of my life — but the habit of too constant 
intercourse with spirits above you, instead of raising you, keeps 
you down. Too frequent doses of original thinking from others, 5 
restrain what lesser portion of that faculty you may possess of 
your own. You get entangled in another man's mind, even as 
you lose yourself in another man's grounds. You are walking 
with a tall varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to lassitude. 
The constant operation of such potent agency would reduce 10 
me, I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts 
from others ; your way of thinking, the mould in which your 
thoughts are cast, must be your own. Intellect may be imparted, 
but not each man's intellectual frame. 

As little as I should wish to be always thus dragged upwards, 15 
as little (or rather still less) is it desirable to be stunted down- 
wards by your associates. The trumpet does not more stun 
you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking 
inaudibility. 

Why are we never quite at our ease in the presence of a 20 
schoolmaster? — because we are conscious that he is not quite 
at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place, in the 
society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from among his 
little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding 
to yours. He cannot meet you on the square. He wants a 25 
point given him, like an indifferent whist-player. He is so 
used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching j^^^;. One of 
these professors, upon my complaining that these Httle sketches 
of mine were anything but methodical, and that I was unable 
to make them otherwise, kindly offered to instruct me in the 30 
method by which young gentlemen in his seminary were taught 
to compose English themes. — The jests of a schoolmaster are 
coarse, or thin. They do not tell out of school. He is under 
the restraint of a formal and didactive hypocrisy in company, as 



1/8 THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

a clergyman is under a moral one. He can no more let his 
intellect loose in society, than the other can his inclinations. — 
He is forlorn among his co-evals ; his juniors cannot be his 
friends. 
5 "I take blame to myself," said a sensible man of this 
profession, writing to a friend respecting a youth who had 
quitted his school abruptly, '' that your nephew was not more 
attached to me. But persons in my situation are more to be 
pitied, than can well be imagined. We are surrounded by 

lo young, and, consequently, ardently affectionate hearts, but we 
can never hope to share an atom of their affections. The 
relation of master and scholar forbids this. How pleasing this 
Diiist be to you, how I envy you?^ feelings, my friends will some- 
times say to me, when they see young men, whom I have 

15 educated, return after some years' absence from school, their 
eyes shining with pleasure, while they shake hands with their 
old master, bringing a present of game to me, or a toy to my 
wife, and thanking me in the warmest terms for my care of 
their education. A holiday is begged for the boys ; the house 

20 is a scene of happiness ; I, only, am sad at heart. — This fine- 
spirited and warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his 
master with gratitude for the care of his boyish years — this 
young man — in the eight long years I watched over him with 
a parent's anxiety, never could repay me with one look of 

25 genuine feeling. He was proud, when I praised ; he was sub- 
missive, when I reproved him ; but he did never love me — and 
what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for me, is but 
the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at re-visiting the 
scene of their boyish hopes and fears ; and the seeing on equal 

30 terms the man they were accustomed to look up to with rever- 
ence. My wife, too," this interesting correspondent goes on 
to say, " my once darling Anna, is the wife of a schoolmaster. — 
When I married her — knowing that the wife of a schoolmaster 
ought to be a busy notable creature, and fearing that my gentle 



THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 1 79 

Anna would ill supply the loss of my dear bustling mother, just 
then dead, who never sat still, was in every part of the house 
in a moment, and whom I was obHged sometimes to threaten 
to fasten down in a chair, to save her from fatiguing herself to 
death — I expressed my fears, that I was bringing her into a 5 
way of life unsuitable to her ; and she, who loved me tenderly, 
promised for my sake to exert herself to perform the duties of 
her new situation. She promised, and she has kept her word. 
What wonders will not a woman's love perform? — My house 
is managed with a propriety and decorum, unknown in other 10 
schools ; my boys are well fed, look healthy, and have every 
proper accommodation; and all this performed with careful 
economy, that never descends to meanness. But I have lost 
my gentle, helpless Anna ! — When we sit down to enjoy an 
hour of repose after the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to 15 
listen to what have been her useful (and they are really useful) 
employments through the day, and what she proposes for her 
to-morrow's task. Her heart and her features are changed by 
the duties of her situation. To the boys, she never appears 
other than the master's wife, and she looks up to me as the 20 
boys' master; to whom all show of love and affection would be 
highly improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her situation 
and mine. Yet this my gratitude forbids me to hint to her. 
For my sake she submitted to be this altered creature, and can 
I reproach her for it? [These kind of complaints are not often 25 
drawn from me. I am aware that I am a fortunate, I mean a 
prosperous man." My feelings prevent me from transcribing 
any further.] — For the communication of this letter, I am 
indebted to my cousin Bridget. 



l80 MY FIRST PLAY 



XXV. MY FIRST PLAY 



At the north end of Cross-court there yet stands a portal, of 
some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, 
serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This 
old door- way, if you are young, reader, you may not know was 
5 the identical pit entrance to Old Drury — Garrick's Drury 
— all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some 
forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening 
when I passed through it to see my first play. The afternoon 
had been wet, and the condition of our going (the elder folks 

10 and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a 
beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from 
the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired 
cessation ! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee 
with which I ran to announce it. 

15 We went with orders, w^hich my godfather F. had sent us. 
He kept the oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Feather- 
stone-building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty 
in speech, and had pretensions above his rank. He associated 
in those days with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and 

20 bearing he seemed to copy ; if John (which is quite as likely) 
did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my god- 
father. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It 
was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first 
wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at Bath 

25 — the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over 
a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his 
harmonious charge. — From either of these connexions it may 
be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the 
then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure — and, indeed, a pretty 

30 liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley's easy autograph, 
I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had 



MY FIRST PLAY l8l 

received for many years' nightly illumination of the orchestra 
and various avenues of that theatre — and he was content it 
should be so. The honour of Sheridan's familiarity — or sup- 
posed familiarity was — better to my godfather than money. 

F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen ; grandiloquent, yet 5 
courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was 
Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his 
mouth (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman's lips !), which 
my better knowledge since has enabled me to correct. In 
strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice versa 10 
— but in those young years they impressed me with more awe 
than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro — 
in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, 
or Anglicized, into something like verse verse. By an imposing 
manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed 15 
(but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which 
St. Andrew's has to bestow. 

He is dead — and thus much I thought due to his memory, 
both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans! — slight 
keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me 20 
more than Arabian paradises !) and moreover, that by his 
testamentary beneficence I came into possession of the only 
landed property which I could ever call my own — situate near 
the road-way village of pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. 
When I journeyed down to take possession, and planted foot 25 
ommy own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended 
upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger 
paces over my allotment of three-quarters of an acre, with its 
commodious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of an 
English freeholder that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. 30 
The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing 
but an agrarian can restore it. 

In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable 
manager who aboHshed them ! — with one of these we went. 



1 82 MY FIRST PLAY 

I remember the waiting at the door — not that which is left — 
but between that and an inner door in shelter — O when shall 
I be such an expectant again ! — with the cry of nonpareils, 
an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those days. As 
5 near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the 
theatrical fruiteresses then was, " Chase some oranges, chase 
some numparels, chase a bill of the play; " — chase /;-<? chuse. 
But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled 
a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed — 

lo the breathless anticipations I endured ! I had seen something 
like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's 
Shakespeare — the tent scene with Diomede — and a sight of 
that plate can always bring back in a measure the feehng of that 
evening. — The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women 

15 of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching 
down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not 
what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling — a homely fancy 
— ■ but I judged it to be sugar-candy — yet, to my raised imagina- 
tion, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified 

20 candy ! — The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair 
Auroras ! " Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet 
once again — and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my 
shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It 
rang the second time. The curtain drew up — I was not past 

25 six years old — and the play was Artaxerxes ! 

I had dabbled a little in the Universal History — the ancient 
part of it — and here was the court of Persia. It was being 
admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the 
action going on, for I understood not its import — but I heard 

30 the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feel- 
ing was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, 
princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in 
Persepolis for the time ; and the burning idol of their devo- 
tion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awestruck, 



MY FIRST PLAY 1 83 

and believed those significations to be something more than 
elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No 
such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams. — Harlequin's 
Invasion followed ; where, I remember, the transformation of 
the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece 5 
of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head 
to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys. 

The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the 
Manor, of which, with the exception of some scenery, very 
faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pan- 10 
tomime, called Lun's Ghost — a satiric touch, I apprehend, 
upon Rich, not long since dead — but to my apprehension 
(too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity 
as Lud — the father of a line of Harlequins — transmitting 
his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless 15 
ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in 
a ghastly vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a 
dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) look when they 
are dead. 

My third play followed in quick succession. It was the 20 
Way of the World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a 
judge ; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady 
Wishfort affected me Hke some solemn tragic passion. Robin- 
son Crusoe followed ; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and the 
parrot, were as good and authentic as in the story. — The 25 
clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean 
passed out of my head. I beheve, I no more laughed at them, 
than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at 
the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with 
devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the 30 
inside of the old Round Church (my church) of the Templars. 

I saw these plays in the season 1 781-2, when I was from 
six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven 
other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again 



1 84 MY FIRST PLAY 

entered the doors of a theatre. The old Artaxerxes evening 
had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same 
feeUngs to come again with the same occasion. But we differ 
from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does 
5 from six. In that interval what had I not lost ! At the first 
period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated 
nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all — 

Was nourished, I could not tell how — 

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. 

10 The same things were there materially ; but the emblem, the 
reference, waSt gone ! — The green curtain was no longer a 
veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was 
to bring back past ages, to present ''a royal ghost," — but a 
certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the 

15 audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men 
who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The 
lights — the orchestra lights — came up a clumsy machinery. 
The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of 
the prompter's bell — which had been, like the note of the 

20 cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at 
which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and 
women painted. I thought the fault was in them ; but it was 
in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries — of 
six short twelvemonths — had wrought in me. — Perhaps it 

25 was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was but an 
indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some unreason- 
able expectations, which might have interfered with the genu- 
ine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter 
upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. 

30 Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present 
attraction of the scene ; and the theatre became to me, upon 
a new stock, the most delightful of recreations. 



MODERN GALLANTRY 185 



XXVI. MODERN GALLANTRY 

In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased 
to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a cer- 
tain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are sup- 
posed to pay to females, as females. 

I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when 5 
I can forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era from 
which we date our civility, we are but just beginning to leave 
off the very frequent practice of whipping females in public, 
in common with the coarsest male offenders. 

I shall beHeve it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes 10 
to the fact, that in England women are still occasionally 
— hanged. 

I shall beHeve in it, when actresses are no longer subject to 
be hissed off a stage by gentlemen. 

I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across 15 
the kennel ; or assists the apple- woman to pick up her wan- 
dering fruit, which some unlucky dray has just dissipated. 

I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, 
who would be thought in their way notable adepts in this 
refinement, shall act upon it in places where they are not 20 
known, or think themselves not observed — when I shall see 
the traveller for some rich tradesman part with his admired 
box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless shoulders of the poor 
woman, who is passing to her parish on the roof of the same 
stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain — when I shall no 25 
longer see a woman standing up in the pit of a London 
theatre, till she is sick and faint with the exertion, with men 
about her, seated at their ease, and jeering at her distress; 
till one, that seems to have more manners or conscience than 
the rest, significantly declares " she should be welcome to his 30 
seat, if she were a little younger and handsomer." Place this 



1 86 MODERN GALLANTRY 

dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle of their own 
female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not 
seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury. 

Lastly, I shall begin to beheve that there is some such 
5 principle influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of 
the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to 
be performed by women. 

Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted 
point to be anything more than a conventional fiction; a 

10 pageant got up between the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a 
certain time of life, in which both find their account equally. 

I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary 
fictions of life, when in polite circles I shall see the same 
attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features as to 

1 5 handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear — to the woman, 

as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. 

I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when 

a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert 

to the topic of female old age without exciting, and intending 

20 to excite, a sneer : — when the phrases "antiquated virginity," 
and such a one has "overstood her market," pronounced in 
good company, shall raise immediate offence in man, or woman, 
that shall hear them spoken. 

Joseph Paice, of Bread Street Hill, merchant, and one of 

25 the Directors of the South-Sea Company — the same to whom 
Edwards, the Shakespeare commentator, has addressed a fine 
sonnet — was the only pattern of consistent gallantry I have 
met with. He took me under his shelter at an early age, and 
bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts and 

30 example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is 
not much) in my composition. It was not his fault that I 
did not profit more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought 
up a merchant, he was the finest gentleman of his time. He 
had not one system of attention to females in the drawing-room, 



MODERN GALLANTRY 1 8/ 

and another in the shop, or at the stall. I do not mean that 
he made no distinction. But he never lost sight of sex, or over- 
looked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous situation. I 
have seen him stand bare-headed — smile if you please — to a 
poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to 5 
some street — in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither 
to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, 
of it. He was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the 
word, after women : but he reverenced and upheld, in every 
form in which it came before him, womanhood. I have seen 10 
him — nay, smile not — tenderly escorting a market-woman, 
whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella 
over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, 
with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To 
the reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall 15 
(though it were to an ancient beggar-woman) with more cere- 
mony than we can afford to show our grandams. He was the 
Preux Chevalier of Age ; the Sir Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to 
those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The 
roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in 20 
those withered and yellow cheeks. 

He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses 
to the beautiful Susan Winstanley — old Winstanley's daughter 
of Clapton — who, dying in the early days of their courtship, 
confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It 25 
was during their short courtship, he told me, that he had been 
one day treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches 
— the common gallantries — to which kind of thing she had 
hitherto manifested no repugnance — but in this instance with 
no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent acknowledg- 30 
ment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. 
He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always 
shown herself above that littleness. When he ventured on 
the following day, finding her a little better humoured, to 



1 88 MODERN GALLANTRY 

expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she con- 
fessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no sort of dislike 
to his attentions ; that she could even endure some high-flown 
compUments; that a young woman placed in her situation 
5 had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her ; that 
she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of 
insincerity, with as little injury to her humihty as most young 
women: but that — a little before he had commenced his 
compliments — she had overheard him by accident, in rather 

lo rough language, rating a young woman, who had not brought 
home his cravats quite to the appointed time, and she thought 
to herself, "As I am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady 
— a reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, — I can have 
my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very 

15 fine gentleman who is courting me — but if I had been poor 
Mary Such-a-one {jiaviing the milliner^, — and had failed of 
bringing home the cravats to the appointed hour — though 
perhaps I had sat up half the night to forward them — what 
sort of compliments should I have received then? — And my 

20 woman's pride came to my assistance ; and I thought, that if 
it were only to do me honour, a female, like myself, might 
have received handsomer usage : and I was determined not 
to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, 
the belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and 

25 title to them." 

I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way 
of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover ; and I 
have sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, 
which through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my 

30 friend towards all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its 
happy origin to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his 
lamented mistress. 

I wish the whole female world would entertain the same 
notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then 



DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 1 89 

we should see something of the spirit of consistent gallantry; 
and no longer witness the anomaly of the same man — a 
pattern of true politeness to , a wife — of cold contempt, or 
rudeness, to a sister — the idolater of his female mistress — 
the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or 5 
unfortunate — still female — maiden cousin. Just so much 
respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever 
condition placed — her handmaid, or dependent — she deserves 
to have diminished from herself on that score ; and probably 
will feel the diminution, when youth, and beauty, and advan- 10 
tages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their attraction. 
What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after 
it, is first — respect for her as she is a woman ; — and next to 
that — to be respected by him above all other women. But 
let her stand upon her female character as upon a foundation ; 15 
and let the attentions, incident to individual preference, be so 
many pretty additaments and ornaments — as many, and as 
fanciful, as you please — to that main structure. Let her 
first lesson be — with sweet Susan Winstanley — to reverence 
her sex. 20 



XXVII. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 

In a Letter to B. F., Esq., at Sydney, New South Wales 

My dear F. — When I think how welcome the sight of a 
letter from the world where you were born must be to you in 
that strange one to which you have been transplanted, I feel 
some compunctious visitings at my long silence. But, indeed, 
it is no easy effort to set about a correspondence at our dis- 25 
tance. The weary world of waters between us oppresses the 
imagination. It is difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine 
should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of presumption to 
expect that one's thoughts should live so far. It is like writing 



1 90 DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 

for posterity ; and reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's super- 
scriptions, "Alcander to Strephon, in the Shades." Cowley's 
Post-Angel is no more than would be expedient in such an 
intercourse. One drops a packet at Lombard-street, and in 
5 twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets it as fresh as if 
it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a long trum- 
pet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with your- 
self at one end, and the man at the other ; it would be some 
balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue 

lo exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or 
three revolutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet for 
aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primi- 
tive idea — Plato's man — than we in England here have the 
"honour to reckon ourselves. 

1 5 Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics ; news, 
sentiment, and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious 
subjects; or subjects serious in themselves, but treated after 
my fashion, non-seriously. — And first, for news. In them the 
most desirable circumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be 

20 true. But what security can I have that what I now send you 
for truth shall not before you get it unaccountably turn into 
a He? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at this present 
writing — my Now — in good health, and enjoys a fair share 
of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it. This is natural 

25 and friendly. But at this present reading — your Now — he 
may possibly be in the Bench, or going to be hanged, which 
in reason ought to abate something of your transport (/.<?., at 
hearing he was well, &c.), or at least considerably to modify 
it. I am going to the play this evening, to have a laugh with 

30 Munden. You have no theatre, I think you told me, in your 

land of d d realities. You naturally lick your lips, and envy 

me my felicity. Think but a moment, and you will correct the 
hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday morning with you, and 
1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand solecism of two 



DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS I9I 

presents, is in a degree common to all postage. But if I sent 
you word to Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the 
aforesaid treat this evening, though at the moment you received 
the intelligence my full feast of fun would be over, yet there 
would be for a day or two after, as you would well know, a 5 
smack, a rehsh left upon my mental palate, which would give 
rational encouragement for you to foster a portion at least of 
the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my intention to 
produce. But ten months hence your envy or your sympathy 
would be as useless as a passion spent upon the dead. Not 10 
only does truth, in these long intervals, un-essence herself, but 
(what is harder) one cannot venture a crude fiction for the 
fear that it may ripen into a truth upon the voyage. What a 
wild improbable banter I put upon you some three years since 

of Will Weatherall having married a servant-maid ! I 15 

remember gravely consulting you how we were to receive her 

— for Will's wife was in no case to be rejected ; and your no 
less serious replication in the matter ; how tenderly you advised 
an abstemious introduction of literary topics before the lady, 
with a caution not to be too forward in bringing on the car- 20 
pet matters more within the sphere of her intelligence; your 
deliberate judgment, or rather wise suspension of sentence, 
how far jacks, and spits, and mops could with propriety be 
introduced as subjects ; whether the conscious avoiding of all 
such matters in discourse would not have a worse look than 25 
the taking of them casually in our way; in what manner we 
should carry ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. William 
Weatherall being by ; whether we should show more delicacy, 
and a truer sense of respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky 
with our customary chiding before her, or by an unusual defer- 30 
ential civility paid to Becky as to a person of great worth, but 
thrown by the caprice of fate into a humble station. There were 
difficulties, I remember, on both sides, which you did me the 
favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, united to th^ 



192 DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 

tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your solemn 
pleadings, when lo ! while I was valuing myself upon this flam 
put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous 
possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy, 
5 has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the 
commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for 
your diversion. William Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's 
maid. But to take it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear 
F., that news from me must become history to you ; which I 
10 neither profess to write, nor indeed care much for reading. No 
person, under a diviner, can with any prospect of veracity con- 
duct a correspondence at such an arm's length. Two prophets, 
indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; the 
epoch of the writer (Habakkuk) falling in with the true present 
15 time of the receiver (Daniel) ; but then we are no prophets. 
Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This 
kind of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot ; or sent 
off in water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm 
as yourself. If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of 
20 all cold meats. I have often smiled at a conceit of the late 
Lord C. It seems that travelling somewhere about Geneva, 
he came to some pretty green spot, or nook, where a willow, 
or something, hung so fantastically and invitingly over a stream 
— was it? — or a rock? — no matter — but the stillness and 
25 the repose, after a weary journey 'tis likely, in a languid 
moment of his lordship's hot restless hfe, so took his fancy, 
that he could imagine no place so proper, in the event of his 
death, to lay his bones in. This was all very natural and 
excusable as a sentiment, and shows his character in a very 
30 pleasing hght. But when from a passing sentiment it came 
to be an act ; and when, by a positive testamentary disposal, 
his remains were actually carried all that way from England ; 
who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted, that 
did not ask the question, Why could not his lordship have 



DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 193 

found a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green 
and pendent, with a stream as emblematic to his purpose, in 
Surrey, in Dorset, or in Devon? Conceive the sentiment 
boarded up, freighted, entered at the Custom House (startling 
the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted into a ship. Con- 5 
ceive it pawed about and handled between the rude jests of 
tarpauHn ruffians — a thing of its delicate texture — the salt 
bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. 
Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition 
about sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some lo 
propitiatory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus 
so foreign to the deviser's purpose !) but it has happily evaded 
a fishy consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing — 
at Lyons shall we say ? — I have not the map before me — 
jostled upon four men's shoulders — baiting at this town — stop- 15 
ping to refresh at t' other village — waiting a passport here, a 
licence there ; the sanction of the magistracy in this district, 
the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in that canton ; till at 
length it arrives at its destination, tired out and jaded, from a 
brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly pride or tawdry sense- 20 
less affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am afraid 
we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite sea- worthy. 

Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though contemp- 
tible in bulk, are the twinkhng corpuscula which should irra- 
diate a right friendly epistle — your puns and small jests are, I 25 
apprehend, extremely circumscribed in their sphere of action. 
They are so far from a capacity of being packed up and sent 
beyond sea, they will scarce endure to be transported by hand 
from this room to the next. Their vigour is as the instant of 
their birth. Their nutriment for their brief existence is the 30 
intellectual atmosphere of the bystanders : or this last, is the 
fine slime of Nilus — the melior lufus, — whose maternal recip- 
iency is as necessary as the sol pater to their equivocal gener- 
ation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present ear-kissing smack 



194 DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 

with it ; you can no more transmit it in its pristine flavour, 
than you can send a kiss, — Have you not tried in some 
instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and 
has it answered ? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it 
5 did not seem to come new from you. It did not hitch in. 
It was like picking up at a village ale-house a two days old 
newspaper. You have not seen it before, but you resent the 
stale thing as an affront. This sort of merchandise above all 
requires a quick return. A pun, and its recognitory laugh, 

lo must be co-instantaneous. The one is the brisk lightning, 
the other the fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and the 
link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as 
from a mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the 
polished surface were two or three minutes (not to speak of 

15 twelve months, my dear F.) in giving back its copy? 

I cannot imagine to myself whereabout you are. When I 
try to fix it, Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Some- 
times you seem to be in the Hades of Thieves, I see Diogenes 
prying among you with his perpetual fruitless lantern. What 

20 must you be willing by this time to give for the sight of an 
honest man ! You must almost have forgotten how we look. 
And tell me, what your Sydneyites do? are they th**v*ng all 
day long ? Merciful heaven ! what property can stand against 
such a depredation ! The kangaroos — your Aborigines — do 

25 they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe- tainted, with 
those little short fore-puds, looking like a lesson framed by 
nature to the pickpocket ! Marry, for diving into fobs they 
are rather lamely provided a pj'iori ; but if the hue and cry 
were once up, they would show as fair a pair of hind-shifters 

30 as the expertest loco-motor in the colony. — We hear the most 
improbable tales at this distance. Pray, is it true that the 
young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which 
spoils their scanning? — It must look very odd ; but use recon- 
ciles. For their scansion, it is less to be regretted, for if they 
take it into their heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn 



DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS I95 

out, the greater part of them, vile plagiarists. — Is there much 
difference to see to between the son of a th**f, and the grand- 
son? or where does the taint stop? Do you bleach in three 
or in four generations ? — I have many questions to put, but 
ten Delphic voyages can be made in a shorter time than it 5 
will take to satisfy my scruples. — Do you grow your own 
hemp ? — What is your staple trade, exclusive of the national 
profession, I mean? Your lock-smiths, I take it, are some of 
your great capitalists. 

I am insensibly chattering to you as familiarly as when we 10 
used to exchange good-morrows out of our old contiguous win- 
dows, in pump-famed Hare-court in the Temple. Why did 
you ever leave that quiet corner ? — Why did I ? — with its 
complement of four poor elms, from whose smoke-dried barks, 
the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first lady- birds ! 15 
My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty 
August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a 
length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our 
English letters before they can reach you. But while I talk, 
I think you hear me, — thoughts dallying with vain surmise — 20 

Ay me ! while thee the seas and sounding shores 
Hold far away. 

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as 
you shall hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on 
crutches. Girls whom you left children have become sage 25 
matrons, while you are tarrying there. The blooming Miss 
W r (you remember Sally W r) called upon us yester- 
day, an aged crone. Folks, whom you knew, die off every year. 
Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out, — I stood 
ramparted about with so many healthy friends. The de- 30 
parture of J. W., two springs back, corrected my delusion. 
Since then the old divorcer has been busy. If you do not make 
haste to return, there will be httle left to greet you, of me, 
or mine. 



196 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 



XXVIII. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 
IN THE METROPOLIS 

The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation — your 
only modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses — is 
uplift with many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering 
tatters of the bugbear Mendicity from the metropolis. Scrips, 
5 wallets, bags — staves, dogs, and crutches — the whole mendi- 
cant fraternity with all their baggage, are fast posting out of 
the purheus of this eleventh persecution. From the crowded 
crossing, from the corners of streets and turnings of alleys, the 
parting Genius of Beggary is " with sighing sent." 

10 I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this 
impertinent crusade, or belliim ad exterminationem^ pro- 
claimed against a species. Much good might be sucked from, 
these Beggars. 

They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. 

15 Their appeals were to our common nature; less revolting to 
an ingenuous mind than to be a suppliant to the particular 
humours or caprice of any fellow-creature, or set of fellow- 
creatures, parochial or societarian. Theirs were the only rates 
uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the assessment. 

20 There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their 
desolation ; as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the 
being a man, than to go in livery. 

The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses ; and when 
Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel anything 

25 towards him but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a pic- 
ture of him, swaying a ferula for a sceptre, which would have 
affected our minds with the same heroic pity, the same com- 
passionate admiration, with which we regard his Belisarius 
begging for an obohim ? Would the moral have been more 

30 graceful, more pathetic? 



A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 1 9/ 

The Blind Beggar in the legend — the father of pretty Bessy 
— whose story doggerel rhymes and ale-house signs cannot so 
degrade or attenuate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit 
will shine through the disguisements — this noble Earl of Corn- 
wall (as indeed he was) and memorable sport of fortune, flee- 5 
ing from the unjust sentence of his Hege lord, stript of all, and 
seated on the flowering green of Bethnal, with his more fresh and 
springing daughter by his side, illumining his rags and his be;^- 
gary — would the child and parent have cut a better figure, doing 
the honours of a counter, or expiating their fallen condition 10 
upon the three-foot eminence of some sempstering shop-board ? 

In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to 
your King. The poets and romancical writers (as dear Marga- 
ret Newcastle would call them), when they would most sharply 
and feelingly paint a reverse of fortune, never stop till they 15 
have brought down their hero in good earnest to rags and the 
wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates the height he 
falls from. There is no medium which can be presented to 
the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall. 
Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, 20 
till he answer " mere nature ; " and Cresseid, fallen from a 
prince's love, must extend her pale arms, pale with other 
whiteness than of beauty, supplicating lazar alms with bell and 
clap-dish. 

The Lucian wits knew this very well ; and, with a converse 25 
policy, when they would express scorn of greatness without 
the pity, they show us an Alexander in the shades cobbling 
shoes, or a Semiramis getting up foul linen. 

How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had 
declined his affections upon the daughter of a baker ! yet do 30 
we feel the imagination at all violated when we read the *' true 
ballad," where King Cophetua woos the beggar maid? 

Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but 
pity alloyed with contempt. No one properly contemns a 



198 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 

beggar. Poverty is a comparative thing, and each degree of 
it is mocked by its "neighbour grice." Its poor rents and 
comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pretences to 
property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save 
5 excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle- 
bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the 
streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being 
a shade better, w^hile the rich pass by and jeer at both. No 
rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing 

10 purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. He is 
not under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none, 
any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with 
ostentation above his means. No one accuses him of pride, or 
upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him for 

15 the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neigh- 
bour seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues 
him. No man goes to law with him. If I were not the inde- 
pendent gentleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer 
to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, 

20 out of the delicacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a 
Beggar. 

Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's 
robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his 
full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in 

25 pubHc. He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly 
behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He 
weareth all colours, fearing none. His costume hath undergone 
less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the 
universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups 

30 and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone 
continueth in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth 
him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial pros- 
perity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers. 
He is not expected to become bail or surety for any one. No 



A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS I99 

man troubleth him with questioning his rehgion or politics. He 
is the only free man in the universe. 

The Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, 
her lions. I can no more spare them than I could the Cries 
of London. No corner of a street is complete without them. 5 
They are as indispensable as the Ballad Singer ; and in their 
picturesque attire as ornamental as the Signs of Old London. 
They were the standing morals, emblems, mementoes, dial- 
mottoes, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salu- 
tary checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy 10 
citizenry — 

Look 

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there. 

Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to Hne the wall 
of Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had 15 
expelled them, casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of 
pity, and (if possible) of light, with their faithful dog guide at 
their feet, — whither are they fled ? or into what corners, blind 
as themselves, have they been driven, out of the wholesome air 
and sun-warmth? immured between four walls, in what with- 20 
ering poor-house do they endure the penalty of double dark- 
ness, where the chink of the dropt half-penny no more consoles 
their forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful 
and hope-stirring tread of the passenger? Where hang their 
useless staves? and who will farm their dogs? — Have the over- 25 

seers of St. L caused them to be shot? or were they tied 

up in sacks and dropt into the Thames, at the suggestion of 

B , the mild rector of ? 

Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most 
classical, and at the same time, most English, of the Latinists ! 30 
— who has treated of this human and quadrupedal alliance, 
this dog and man friendship, in the sweetest of his poems, the 
Epitaphiuni in Canem, or. Dog's Epitaph, Reader, peruse 



200 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 

it ; and say, if customary sights, which could call up such 
gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more harm or 
good to the moral sense of the passengers through the daily 
thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis. 

5 Pauperis hie Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis, 

Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectae, 
Dux caeco fidus : nee, me ducente, solebat, 
Praetenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum 
Incertam explorare viam ; sed fila secutus, 

lo Qus dubios regerent passus, vestigia tuta 

Fixit inoffenso gressu ; gelidumque sedile 
In nudo nactus saxo, qua praetereuntium 
Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras 
Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam, 

15 Ploravit nee frustra ; obolum dedit alter et alter, 

Quels corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam. 
Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile, 
Vel mediis vigil in somnis ; ad herilia jussa 
Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice 

20 Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei 

Taedia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat. 

Hi mores, haec vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, 
Dum neque languebam morbis, nee inerte senecta ; 
Quae tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite caecum 

25 Orbavit dominum : prisci sed gratia facti 

Ne tota intereat, longos deleta per annos, 
Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit, 
Etsi inopis, non ingratae, munuscula dextrae ; 
Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque 

30 Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum. 

Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, 
That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, 
His guide and guard ; nor, while my service lasted. 
Had he occasion for that staff, with which 



A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 20I 

He now goes picking out his path in fear 

Over the highways and crossings, but would plant 

Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, 

A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd 

His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide 5 

Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd : 

To whom with loud and passionate laments 

From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. 

Nor wail'd to all in vain : some here and there, 

The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. lo 

I meantime at his feet obsequious slept ; 

Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear 

Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive 

At his kind hand my customary crumbs, 

And common portion in his feast of scraps; 15 

Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent 

With our long day, and tedious beggary. 

These were my manners, this my way of life. 
Till age and slow disease me overtook, 

And sever'd from my sightless master's side. 20 

But lest the grace of so good deeds should die, 
Through tract of years in mute obHvion lost. 
This slender tomb of turf hath Irus rear'd, 
Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand. 

And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, 25 

In long and lasting union to attest. 
The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. 

These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months 
past a well-known figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who 
used to glide his comely upper half over the pavements of 30 
London, wheeling along with most ingenious celerity upon 
a machine of wood ; a spectacle to natives, to foreigners, and 
to children. He was of a robust make, with a florid sailor- 
like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and 
sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a speculation to the 35 



202 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 

scientific, a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at 
the mighty man brought down to his own level. The common 
cripple would despise his own pusillanimity, viewing the hale 
stoutness, and hearty heart, of this half-limbed giant. Few 
5 but must have noticed him ; for the accident, which brought 
him low, took place during the riots of 1780, and he has been 
a groundling so- long. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus, and 
to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. 
He was a grand fragment ; as good as an Elgin marble. The 

10 nature which should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, 
was not lost, but only retired into his upper parts, and he was 
half a Hercules. I heard a tremendous voice thundering and 
growling, as before an earthquake, aiid casting down my eyes, 
it was this mandrake reviling a steed that had started at his 

15 portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his just 
stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He 
was as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half 
had been cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He 
moved on as if he could have made shift with yet half of the 

20 body-portion which was left him. The os sublime was not 
wanting ; and he threw out yet a jolly countenance upon the 
heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this out-of-door 
trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service, but his 
good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to 

25 exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor- 
house, he is expiating his contumacy in one of th^se houses 
(ironically christened) of Correction. 

Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, 
which called for legal interference to remove? or not rather a 

30 salutary and a touching object, to the passers-by in a great city? 
Among her shows, her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping 
curiosity (and what else but an accumulation of sights — end- 
less sights — is a great city ; or for what else is it desirable ?) 
was there not room for one Lusus (not Naturce, indeed, but) 



A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 203 

Accidentiujii ? What if in forty-and-two years' going about, 
the man had scraped together enough to give a portion to his 
child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds — whom had he 
injured? — whom had he imposed upon? The contributors 
had enjoyed their sight for their pennies. What if after being 5 
exposed all day to the heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven 

— shuffling his ungainly trunk along in an elaborate and pain- 
ful motion — he was enabled to retire at night to enjoy himself 
at a club of his fellow-cripples over a dish of hot meat and 
vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought against him by a 10 
clergyman deposing before a House of Commons' Committee 

— was this, or was his truly paternal consideration, which (if 
a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is 
inconsistent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies 
which he has been slandered with — a reason that he should 15 
be deprived of his chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way of life, 
and be committed in hoary age for a sturdy vagabond ? — 

There was a Yorick once, whom it would not have shamed 
to have sate down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown 
in his benediction, ay, and his mite too, for a companionable 20 
symbol. "Age, thou hast lost thy breed." — 

Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by 
begging are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was 
much talked of in the public papers some time since, and the 
usual charitable inferences deduced. A clerk in the Bank 25 
was surprised with the announcement of a five hundred pound 
legacy left him by a person whose name he was a stranger to. 
It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham (or 
some village thereabouts) where he lived, to his office, it had 
been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his half- 30 
penny duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sate 
begging alms by the way-side in the Borough. The good old 
beggar recognized his daily benefactor by the voice only ; and, 
when he died, left all the amassings of his alms (that had been 



204 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 

half a century perhaps in the accumulating) to his old Bank 
friend. Was this a story to purse up people's hearts, and 
pennies, against giving an alms to the blind ? — or not rather 
a beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part, and 
5 noble gratitude upon the other? 

I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk. 
I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, 
blinking, and looking up with his no eyes in the sun — 
Is it possible I could have steeled my purse against him? 
lo Perhaps I had no small change. 

Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, imposition, 
- imposture — give^ and ask no questions. Cast thy bread upon 
the waters. Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) enter- 
tained angels. 
15 Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. 
Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly 
and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire 
whether the " seven small children," in whose name he im- 
plores thy assistance, have a veritable existence. Rake not into 
20 the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save a half-penny. It is 
good to believe him. If he be not all that he pretendeth, 
give^ and under a personate father of a family, think (if thou 
pleasest) that thou hast reheved an indigent bachelor. When 
they come with their counterfeit looks, and mumping tones, 
25 think them players. You pay your money to see a comedian 
feign these things, which, concerning these poor people, thou 
canst not certainly tell whether they are feigned or not. 

["Pray God, your honour, relieve me," said a poor beads- 
woman to my friend L one day : "I have seen better 

30 days." " So have I, my good woman," retorted he, looking 
up at the welkin, which was just then threatening a storm — 
and the jest (he will have it) was as good to the beggar as a 
tester. It was, at all events, kinder than consigning her to 
the stocks, or the parish beadle. — 



A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 205 

But L. has a way of viewing things in rather a paradoxical 
Hght on some occasions. 

P.S. — My friend Hume (not M.P.) has a curious manu- 
script in his possession, the original draft of the celebrated 
'' Beggar's Petition " (who cannot say by heart the " Beggar's 5 
Petition? "), as it was written by some school usher (as I 
remember), with corrections interlined from the pen of Oliver 
Goldsmith. As a specimen of the Doctor's improvement, I 
recollect one most judicious alteration — 

A pamper'd menial drove me from the door. 10 

It stood originally — 

A livery servant drove me, &c. 

Here is an instance of poetical or artificial language properly 
substituted for the phrase of common conversation; against 
Wordsworth, I think I must get H. to send it to the'' London," 15 
as a corollary to the foregoing.] ^ 



XXJX. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAV- 
IOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE 

As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in 
noting down the infirmities of Married People, to console 
myself for those superior pleasures, which they tell me I have 
lost by remaining as I am. 20 

I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives ever 
made any great impression upon me, or had much tendency to 
strengthen me in those anti-social resolutions, which I took up 
long ago upon more substantial considerations. What oftenest 
offends me at the houses of married persons where I visit, is 25 
an error of quite a different description ; — it is that they are 
too loving. 

1 Contained in the original paper, but canceled by Lamb in the 
edition of 1823. 



206 A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 

Not too loving neither : that does not explain my meaning. 
Besides, why should that offend me ? The very act of separat- 
ing themselves from the rest of the world, to have the fuller 
enjoyment of each other's society, implies that they prefer one 
5 another to all the world. 

But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so 
undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people 
so shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment 
without being made to feel, by some indirect hint or open 

lo avowal, that you are not the object of this preference. Now 
there are some things which give no offence, while implied or 
taken for granted merely ; but expressed, there is much offence 
in them. If a man were to accost the first homely-featured or 
plain-dressed young woman of his acquaintance, and tell her 

15 bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, 
and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked 
for his ill manners ; yet no less is implied in the fact, that hav- 
ing access and opportunity of putting the question to her, he 
has never thought fit to do it. The young woman understands 

20 this as clearly as if it were put into words ; but no reasonable 
young woman would think of making this the ground of a quarrel. 
Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by speeches, 
and looks that are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am 
not the happy man, — the lady's choice. It is enough that I 

25 know I am not : I do not want this perpetual reminding. 

The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made 
sufficiently mortifying ; but these admit of a palliative. The 
knowledge which is brought out to insult me, may accidentally 
improve me ; and in the rich man's houses and pictures, — his 

30 parks and gardens, I have a temporary usufruct at least. But 
the display of married happiness has none of these palliatives : 
it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified insult. 

Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least 
invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any 



A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 20/ 

exclusive privilege to keep their advantage as much out cf 
sight as possible, that their less favoured neighbours, seeing 
little of the benefit, may the less be disposed to question the 
right. But these married monopoHsts thrust the most obnox- 
ious part of their patent into our faces. 5 

Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire compla- 
cency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a 
new-married couple, — in that of the lady particularly : it tells 
you, that her lot is disposed of in this world ; that yoti can 
have no hopes of her. It is true, I have none; nor wishes 10 
either, perhaps : but this is one of those truths which ought, 
as I said before, to be taken for granted, not expressed. 

The excessive airs which those people give themselves, 
founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would be 
more offensive if they were less irrational. We will allow them 1 5 
to understand the mysteries belonging to their own craft better 
than we who have not had the happiness to be made free of 
the company : but their arrogance is not content within these 
limits. If a single person presume to offer his opinion in their 
presence, though upon the most indifferent subject, he is im- 20 
mediately silenced as an incompetent person. Nay, a young 
married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best of the jest was, 
had not changed her condition above a fortnight before, in 
a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from her, 
respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the Lon- 25 
don market, had the assurance to ask, with a sneer, how such 
an old Bachelor as I could pretend to know any thing about 
such matters. 

But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs 
which these creatures give themselves when they come, as they 30 
generally do, to have children. When I consider how little 
of a rarity children are, — that every street and bhnd alley 
swarms with them, — that the poorest people commonly have 
them in most abundance, — that there are few marriages that 



208 A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 

are not blest with at least one of these bargains, — how often 
they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, 
taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the 
gallows, &c. — I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride 
5 there can possibly be in having them. If they were young 
phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there 

might be a pretext. But when they are so common 

I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with 
their husbands on these occasions. Let them look to that. 

10 But why we^ who are not their natural-born subjects, should 
be expected to bring our spices, myrrh, and incense, — our 
tribute and homage of admiration, — I do not see. 

" Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are 
the young children : " so says the excellent office in our Prayer- 

15 book appointed for the churching of women. "Happy is the 
man that hath his quiver full of them : " So say I; but then 
don't let him discharge his quiver upon us that are weaponless ; 
— let them be arrows, but not to gall and stick us. I have 
generally observed that these arrows are double-headed : they 

20 have two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the other. As for 
instance, where you come into a house which is full of children, 
if you happen to take no notice of them (you are thinking of 
something else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent 
caresses), you are set down as un tractable, morose, a hater of 

25 children. On the other hand, if you find them more than 
usually engaging, — if you are taken with their pretty manners, 
and set about in earnest to romp and play with them, some 
pretext or other is sure to be found for sending them out of 
the room : they are too noisy or boisterous, or Mr. does 

30 not like children. With one or other of these forks the arrow 
is sure to hit you. 

I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with 
their brats, if it gives them any pain ; but I think it unreason- 
able to be called upon to love them, where I see no occasion. 



A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 209 

— to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, nine, or ten, indis- 
criminately, — to love all the pretty dears, because children 
are so engaging. 

I know there is a proverb, " Love me, love my dog; " that 
is not always so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set 5 
upon you to tease you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or 
a lesser thing, — any inanimate substance, as a keepsake, a 
watch or a ring, a tree, or the place where we last parted when 
my friend went away upon a long absence, I can make shift 
to love, because I love him, and anything that reminds me of 10 
him j provided it be in its nature indifferent, and apt to receive 
whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a real char- 
acter and an essential being of themselves : they are amiable 
or unamiable per se ; I must love or hate them as I see cause 
for either in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a 15 
thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage 
to another being, and to be loved or hated accordingly : they 
stand with me upon their own stock, as much as men and 
women do. O ! but you will say, sure it is an attractive age, 

— there is something in the tender years of infancy that of 20 
itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am more nice 
about them. I know that a sweet child is the sweetest thing 

in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures which bear 
them ; but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desir- 
able it is that it should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs 25 
not much from another in glory ; but a violet should look and 
smell the daintiest. — I was always rather squeamish in my 
women and children. 

But this is not the worst : one must be admitted into their 
familiarity, at least, before they can complain of inattention. 30 
It implies visits, and some kind of intercourse. But if the hus- 
band be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing 
before marriage, — if you did not come in on the wife's side, 

— if you did not sneak into the house in her train, but were 



2IO A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 

an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship 
was so much as thought on, — look about you — your tenure is 
precarious — before a twelvemonth shall roll over your head, 
you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered 
5 towards you, and at last seek opportunities of breaking with 
you. I have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon 
whose firm faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence 
after the period of his marriage. With some limitations they 
can endure that : but that the good man should have dared to 

lo enter into a solemn league of friendship in which they were 
not consulted, though it happened before they knew him, — 
before they that are now man and wife ever met, — this is 
intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic 
intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped 

1 5 with their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old 
money that was coined in some reign before he was born or 
thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of 
his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world. 
You may guess what luck generally befalls such a rusty piece 

20 of metal as I am in these new 7?iinti?igs. 

Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and worm 
you out of their husband's confidence. Laughing at all you 
say with a kind of wonder, as if you were a queer kind of fel- 
low that said good things, but aft oddity, is one of the ways ; — 

25 they have a particular kind of stare for the purpose ; — till at 
last the husband, who used to defer to your judgment, and 
would pass over some excrescences of understanding and man- 
ner for the sake of a general vein of observation (not quite 
vulgar) which he perceived in you, begins to suspect whether 

30 you are not altogether a humourist, — a fellow well enough to 
have consorted with in his bachelor days, but not quite so 
proper to be introduced to ladies. This may be called the 
staring way ; and is that which has oftenest been put in prac- 
tice against me. 



A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 211 

Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony : 
that is, where they find you an object of especial regard with 
their husband, who is not so easily to be shaken from the last- 
ing attachment founded on esteem which he has conceived 
towards you ; by never-qualified exaggerations to cry up all 5 
that you say or do, till the good man, who understands well 
enough that it is all done in compliment to him, grows weary 
of the debt of gratitude which is due to so much candour, and 
by relaxing a little on his part, and taking down a peg or two 
in his enthusiasm, sinks at length to that kindly level of mod- 10 
erate esteem, — that '^ decent affection and complacent kind- 
ness " towards you, where she herself can join in sympathy with 
him without much stretch and violence to her sincerity. 

Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desir- 
able a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent sim- 15 
plicity, continually to mistake what it was which first made 
their husband fond of you. If an esteem for something excel- 
lent in your moral character was that which riveted the chain 
which she is to break, upon any imaginary discovery of a want 
of poignancy in your conversation, she will cry, " I thought, 20 

my dear, you described your friend, Mr. , as a great wit." 

If, on the other hand, it was for some supposed charm in your 
conversation that he first grew to like you, and was content 
for this to overlook some trifling irregularities in your moral 
deportment, upon the first notice of any of these she as readily 25 

exclaims, " This, my dear, is your good Mr. ." One good 

lady whom I took the liberty of expostulating with for not 
showing me quite so much respect as I thought due to her 
husband's old friend, had the candour to confess to me that 

she had often heard Mr. speak of me before marriage, 30 

and that she had conceived a great desire to be acquainted 
with me, but that the sight of me had very much disappointed 
her expectations ; for from her husband's representations of 
me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall. 



212 A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT 

officer-like looking man (I use her very words) ; the very 
reverse of which proved to be the truth. This was candid; 
and I had the civility not to ask her in return, how she came 
to pitch upon a standard of personal accomplishments for her 
5 husband's friends which differed so much from his own ; for 
my friend's dimensions as near as possible approximate to 
mine ; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which I have 
the advantage of him by about half an inch ; and he no more 
than myself exhibiting any indications of a martial character 

lo in his air or countenance. 

These are some of the mortifications which I have encoun- 
tered in the absurd attempt to visit at their houses. To enu- 
merate them all would be a vain endeavour : I shall therefore 
just glance at the very common impropriety of which married 

15 ladies are guilty, — of treating us as if we were their husbands, 
and vice versa. I mean, when they use us with familiarity, and 
their husbands with ceremony. Testacea, for instance, kept 
me the other night two or three hours beyond my usual time 
of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. did not 

20 come home till the oysters were all spoiled, rather than she 
would be guilty of the impoliteness of touching one in his 
absence. This was reversing the point of good manners : for 
ceremony is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling which 
we derive from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love 

25 and esteem with a fellow-creature than some other person is. 
It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in little 
points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to deny 
in the greater. Had Testacea kept the oysters back for me, 
and withstood her husband's importunities to go to supper, 

30 she would have acted according to the strict rules of propriety. , 
I know no ceremony that ladies are bound to observe to their 
husbands, beyond the point of a modest behaviour and deco- 
rum : therefore I must protest against the vicarious gluttony 
of Cerasia, who at her own table sent away a dish of Morellas, 



1 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 21 3 

which I was applying to with great good will, to her husband 
at the other end of the table, and recommended a plate of less 
extraordinary gooseberries to my unwedded palate in their 

stead. Neither can I excuse the wanton affront of . 

But I am weary of stringing up all my married acquaintance 
by Roman denominations. Let them amend and change their 
manners, or I promise to record the full-length English of their 
names, to the terror of all such desperate offenders in future. 



XXX. ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST 
CENTURY 

The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of Manners, is quite 
extinct on our stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their 10 
heads once in seven years only, to be exploded and put down 
instantly. The times cannot bear them. Is it for a few wild 
speeches, an occasional licence of dialogue? I think not 
altogether. The business of their dramatic characters will not 
stand the moral test. We screw everything up to that. Idle 15 
gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of an even- 
ing, startles us in the same way as the alarming indications of 
profligacy in a son or ward in real life should startle a parent or 
guardian. We have no such middle emotions as dramatic 
interests left. We see a stage libertine playing his loose 20 
pranks of two hours' duration, and of no after-consequence, 
with the severe eyes which inspect real vices with their bear- 
ings upon two worlds. We are spectators to a plot or intrigue 
(not reducible in life to the point of strict morality) and take it 
all for truth. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and 25 
judge him accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which 
there is no appeal to the drafnatis personce, his peers. We 
have been spoiled with — not sentimental comedy — but a 
tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded 



214 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of common life ; 
where the moral point is everything ; where, instead of the 
fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms 
of old comedy) we recognize ourselves, our brothers, aunts, 
5 kinsfolk, allies, patrons, enemies, — the same as in life, — with 
an interest in what is going on so hearty and substantial, that 
we cannot afford our moral judgment, in its deepest and most 
vital results, to compromise or slumber for a moment. What 
is there transacting, by no modification is made to affect us in 

lo any other manner than the same events or characters would 
do in our relationships of life. We carry our fire-side concerns 
to the theatre with us. We do not go thither, like our ances- 
tors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to 
confirm our experience of it ; to make assurance double, and 

15 take a bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice 
over, as it was the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend 
twice to the shades. All that neutral ground of character, 
which stood between vice and virtue ; or which in fact was 
indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in 

20 question ; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a 
perpetual moral questioning — the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia 
of hunted casuistry — is broken up and disfranchised, as injuri- 
ous to the interests of society. The privileges of the place 
are taken away by law. We dare not dally with images, or 

25 names, of wrong. We bark like foolish dogs at shadows. We 
dread infection from the scenic representation of disorder ; and I 
fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety that our morality should 1 
not take cold, we wrap it up in a great blanket surtout of pre- 
caution against the breeze and sunshine. ! 

30 I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to 
answer for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond 
the diocese of the strict conscience, — not to live always in the 
precincts of the law courts, — but now and then, for a dream- 
while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions ; 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 21 ^ 

— to get into recesses, whither the hunter cannot follow 
me — 

Secret shades 

Of woody Ida's inmost grove, 

While yet there was no fear of Jove — 5 

I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more 
healthy for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for hav- 
ing respired the breath of an imaginary freedom. I do not 
know how it is with others, but I feel the better always for the 
perusal of one of Congreve's — nay, why should I not add 10 
even of Wycherley's — comedies. I am the gayer at least for 
it ; and I could never connect those sports of a witty fancy in 
any shape with any result to be drawn from them to imitation 
in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much 
as fairy-land. Take one of their characters, male or female 15 
(with few exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern 
play, and my virtuous indignation shall rise against the profli- 
gate wretch as warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire; 
because in a modern play I am to judge of the right and the 
wrong. The standard of police is the measure of political 20 
justice. The atmosphere will bhght it, it cannot live here. 
It has got into a moral world, where it has no business, from 
which it must needs fall headlong ; as dizzy and incapable of 
making a stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has wan- 
dered unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men, or 25 
Angels. But in its own world do we feel the creature is so 
very bad? — The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants 
and the Lady Touchwoods, in their own sphere, do not offend 
my moral sense ; in fact they do not appeal to it at all. They 
seem engaged in their proper element. They break through 30 
no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. 
They have got out of Christendom into the land — what shall 
I call it? — of cuckoldry — the Utopia of gallantry, where 
pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. It is 



2l6 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

altogether a speculative scene of things, which has no refer- 
ence whatever to the world that is. No good person can be 
justly offended as a spectator, because no good person suffers 
on the stage. Judged morally, every character in these plays 
5 — the few exceptions only are mistakes — is alike essentially 
vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve is especially 
shown in this, that he has entirely excluded from his scenes, — 
some little generosities in the part of AngeHca perhaps excepted, 
— not only anything like a faultless character, but any preten- 

lo sions to goodness or good feelings whatsoever. Whether he 
did this designedly, or instinctively, the effect is as happy, 
as the design (if design) was bold. I used to wonder at the 
strange power which his Way of the World in particular pos- 
sesses of interesting you all along in the pursuits of characters, 

15 for whom you absolutely care nothing — for you neither hate 
nor love his personages — and I think it is owing to this very 
indifference for any, that you endure the whole. He has 
spread a privation of moral light, I will call it, rather than by 
the ugly name of palpable darkness, over his creations ; and 

20 his shadows flit before you without distinction or preference. 
Had he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral 
feeling, a revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual 
duties, the impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to the 
discovery of deformities, which now are none, because we 

25 think them none. 

Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his friend 
Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets, — the busi- 
ness of their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless 
gallantry. No other spring of action, or possible motive of 

30 conduct, is recognized ; principles which, universally acted 
upon, must reduce this frame of things to a chaos. But we 
do them wrong in so translating them. No such effects are 
produced in their world. When we are among them, we are 
amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 21/ 

usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their pro- 
ceedings, — for they have none among them. No peace of 
famihes is violated, — for no family ties exist among them. 
No purity of the marriage bed is stained, — for none is sup- 
posed to have a being. No deep affections are disquieted, — 5 
no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder, — for affection's 
depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. 
There is neither right nor wrong, — gratitude or its opposite, 
— claim or duty, — paternity or sonship. Of what conse- 
quence is it to virtue, or how is she at all concerned about it, 10 
whether Sir Simon, or Dapperwit, steal away Miss Martha; or 
who is the father of Lord Froth's, or Sir Paul Pliant's children? 

The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as 
unconcerned at the issues, for Hfe or death, as at a battle of 
the frogs and mice. But like Don Quixote, we take part 15 
against the puppets, and quite as impertinently. We dare not 
contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out of which our cox- 
combical moral sense is for a little transitory ease excluded. 
We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for 
which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to 20 
the painful necessities of shame and blame. We would indict 
our very dreams. 

Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon grow- 
ing old, it is something to have seen the School for Scandal in 
its glory. This comedy grew out of Congreve and Wycherley, 25 
but gathered some allays of the sentimental comedy which 
followed theirs. It is impossible that it should be now acted, 
though it continues, at long intervals, to be announced in the 
bills. Its hero, when Palmer played it at least, was Joseph 
Surface. When I remember the gay boldness, the graceful 30 
solemn plausibility, the measured step, the insinuating voice — 
to express it in a word — the downright acted villany of the 
part, so different from the pressure of conscious actual wick- 
edness, — the hypocritical assumption of hypocrisy, — which 



21 8 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

made Jack so deservedly a favourite in that character, I must 
needs conclude the present generation of play-goers more vir- 
tuous than myself, or more dense. I freely confess that he 
divided the palm with me with his better brother; that, in 
5 fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages, — 
like that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a pit- 
tance to a poor relation, — incongruities which Sheridan was 
forced upon by the attempt to join the artificial with the sen- 
timental comedy, either of which must destroy the other — 

10 but over these obstructions Jack's manner floated him so lightly, 
that a refusal from him no more shocked you, than the easy com- 
pliance of Charles gave you in reality any pleasure ; you got over 
the paltry question as quickly as you could, to get back into the 
regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. The 

15 highly artificial manner of Palmer in this character counter- 
acted every disagreeable impression which you might have 
received from the contrast, supposing them real, between the 
two brothers. You did not believe in Joseph with the same 
faith with which you believed in Charles. The latter was a 

20 pleasant reality, the former a no less pleasant poetical foil to 
it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous ; a mixture of 
Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities : the gaiety upon 
the whole is buoyant ; but it required the consummate art of 
Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements. 

25 A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would not 
dare to do the part in the same manner. He would instinc- 
tively avoid every turn which might tend to unrealize, and so 
to make the character fascinating. He must take his cue 
from his spectators, who would expect a bad man and a good 

30 man as rigidly opposed to each other as the death-beds of those 
geniuses are contrasted in the prints, which I am sorry to say 
have disappeared from the windows of my old friend Carrington 
Bowles, of St. Paul's Church-yard memory — (an exhibition as 
venerable as the adjacent cathedral, and almost coeval) of the 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 2ig 

bad and good man at the hour of death ; where the ghastly 
apprehensions of the former, — and truly the grim phantom 
with his reality of a toasting fork is not to be despised, — so 
finely contrast with the meek complacent kissing of the rod, — 
taking it in like honey and butter, — with which the latter 5 
submits to the scythe of the gentle bleeder. Time, who wields 
his lancet with the apprehensive finger of a popular young 
ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would not covet 
to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower ? — John 
Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He was 10 
playing to you all the while that he was playing upon Sir Peter 
and his lady. You had the first intimation of a sentiment 
before it was on his lips. His altered voice was meant to you, 
and you were to suppose that his fictitious co-flutterers on the 
stage perceived nothing at all of it. What was it to you if 15 
that half-reahty, the husband, was over-reached by the pup- 
petry — or the thin thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was per- 
suaded it was dying of a plethory? The fortunes of Othello, 
and Desdemona were not concerned in it. Poor ^ack has 
passed from the stage in good time, that he did not live to 20 
this our age of seriousness. The pleasant old Teazle Xing, 
too, is gone in good time. His manner would scarce have 
passed current in our day. We must love or hate — acquit or 
condemn — censure or pity — exert our detestable coxcombry 
of moral judgment upon everything. Joseph Surface, to go 25 
down now, must be a downright revolting villain — no com- 
promise — his first appearance must shock and give horror — 
his specious plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of 
our fathers welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that 
no harm (dramatic harm even) could come, or was meant to 30 
come of them, must inspire a cold and kilhng aversion. 
Charles (the real canting person of the scene — for the hypoc- 
risy of Joseph has its ulterior legitimate ends, but his brother's 
professions of a good heart centre in downright self-satisfaction) 



220 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

must be loved, and Joseph hated. To balance one disa- 
greeable reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle must be no 
longer the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bridegroom, 
whose teasings (while King acted it) were evidently as much 
5 played off at you, as they were meant to concern anybody 
on the stage, — he must be a real person, capable in law of 
sustaining an injury — a person towards whom duties are to be 
acknowledged — the genuine crim-con. antagonist of the vil- 
lanous seducer Joseph. To realize him more, his sufferings 

10 under his unfortunate match must have the downright pun- 
gency of life — must (or should) make you not mirthful but 
uncomfortable, just as the same predicament would move you 
in a neighbour or old friend. The deHcious scenes which give 
the play its name and zest, must affect you in the same serious 

15 manner as if you heard the reputation of a dear female friend 
attacked in your real presence. Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin 

— those poor snakes that live but in the sunshine of your 
mirth — must be ripened by this hot-bed process of realization 
into asps or amphisbaenas ; and Mrs. Candour — O ! frightful ! 

20 become a hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons 
and Dodd — the wasp and butterfly of the School for Scandal 

— in those two characters; and charming natural Miss Pope, 
the perfect gentlewoman as distinguished from the fine lady of 
comedy, in this latter part — would forego the true scenic 

25 delight — the escape from life — the oblivion of consequences 

— the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection — those 
Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won from the world 

— to sit instead at one of our modern plays — to have his 
coward conscience (that forsooth must not be left for a 

30 moment) stimulated with perpetual appeals — dulled rather, 
and blunted, as a faculty without repose must be — and his 
moral vanity pampered with images of notional justice, notional 
beneficence, lives saved without the spectators' risk, and for- 
tunes given away that cost the author nothing? 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 221 

No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its 
parts as this 7nanager''s comedy. Miss Farren had succeeded 
to Mrs. Abingdon in Lady Teazle ; and Smith, the original 
Charles, had retired, when I iirst saw it. The rest of the 
characters, with very slight exceptions, remained. I remember 5 
it was then the fashion to cry down John Kemble, who took 
the part of Charles after Smith; but, I thought, very unjustly. 
Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and took the eye with a certain 
gaiety of person. He brought with him no sombre recollec- 
tions of tragedy. He had not to expiate the fault of having 10 
pleased beforehand in lofty declamation. He had no sins of 
Hamlet or of Richard to atone for. His failure in these parts 
was a passport to success in one of so opposite a tendency. 
But, as far as I could judge, the weighty sense of Kemble 
made'up for more personal incapacity than he had to answer 15 
for. His harshest tones in this part came steeped and dulci- 
fied in good humour. He made his defects a grace. His 
exact declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served to 
convey the points of his dialogue with more precision. It 
seemed to head the shafts to carry them deeper. Not one of 20 
his sparkling sentences was lost. I remember minutely how 
he delivered each in succession, and cannot by any effort 
imagine how any of them could be altered for the better. No 
man could deliver brilliant dialogue — the dialogue of Con- 
greve or of Wycherley — because none understood it — half so 25 
well as John Kemble. His Valentine, in Love for Love, was, 
to my recollection, faultless. He flagged sometimes in the 
intervals of tragic passion. He would slumber over the level 
parts of an heroic character. His Macbeth has been known 
to nod. But he always seemed to me to be particularly alive 30 
to pointed and witty dialogue. The relaxing levities of tragedy 
have not been touched by any since him — the playful court- 
bred spirit in which he condescended to the players in Hamlet 
— the sportive rehef which he threw into the darker shades of 



222 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

Richard — disappeared with him. Tragedy is become a uni- 
form dead weight. They have fastened lead to her buskins. 
She never pulls them off for the ease of a moment. To invert- 
a commonplace from Niobe, she never forgets herself to lique- 
5 faction. He had his sluggish moods, his torpors — but they 
were the halting-stones and resting-place of his tragedy — 
politic savings, and fetches of the breath — husbandry of the 
lungs, where nature pointed him to be an economist — rather, 
I think, than errors of the judgment. They were, at worst, 

lo less painful than the eternal tormenting unappeasable vigilance, 
— the " lidless dragon eyes," of present fashionable tragedy. 

The story of his swallowing opium pills to keep him lively 
on the first night of a certain tragedy, we may presume to be 
a piece of retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering 

15 author; but, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a compla- 
cent equable dulness (which you knew not where to quarrel 
with), over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his 
contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind early, 
that all the good tragedies which could be written, had been 

20 written ; and he resented any new attempt. His shelves were 
full. The old standards w^ere scope enough for his ambition. 
He ranged in them absolutely — and fair "in Otway, full in 
Shakespeare shone." He succeeded to the old lawful thrones, 
and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward 

25 Mortimer or any casual speculator that offered. I remember, 
too actually for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which he 
put upon my friend G.'s "Antonio." G., satiate with visions of 
poHtical justice (possibly not to be realized in our time), or 
wilHng to let the sceptical worldlings see that his anticipa- 

30 tions of the future did not preclude a warm sympathy for men 
as they are and have been' — wrote a tragedy. He chose a 
story, affecting, romantic, Spanish — the plot simple, without 
being naked — the incidents uncommon, without being over- 
strained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 223 

sensitive young Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honour, 
immolates his sister — 

But I must not anticipate the catastrophe — the play, reader, 
is extant in choice English — and you will employ a spare 
half-crown not injudiciously in the quest of it. 5 

The conception was bold, and the denouinent — the time 
and place in which the hero of it existed, considered — not 
much out of keeping; yet it must be confessed, that it required 
a delicacy of handling both from the author and the performer, 
so as not much to shock the prejudices of a modern English 10 
audience. G., in my opinion, had done his part. 

John, who was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had 
undertaken to play Antonio. Great expectations were formed. 
A philosopher's first play was a new era. The night arrived. 
I was favoured with a seat in an advantageous box, between 15 
the author and his friend M . G. sat cheerful and con- 
fident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the man- 
uscript, I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John 
Phihp Kemble, at length appeared, starched out in a ruff 
which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mus- 20 
tachios. John always dressed most provokingly correct on 
these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It 
went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a 
piece — the protasis — should do. The cue of the spectators 
was, to be mute. The characters were but in their introduc- 25 
tion. The passions and the incidents would be developed 
hereafter. Applause hitherto would be impertinent. Silent 
attention was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. acquiesced — 
but in his honest, friendly face I could discern a working which 
told how much more acceptable the plaudit of a single hand 30 
(however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning. 
The second act (as in duty bound) rose a httle in interest, but 
still John kept his forces under — in policy, as G. would have 
it — and the audience were most complacently attentive. The 



224 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

protasis, in fact, was scarcely unfolded. The interest would 
warm in the next act, against which a special incident was pro- 
vided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a friendly perspira-" 
tion — 'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal — " from every pore 
5 of him a perfume falls " — I honour it above Alexander's. He 
had once or twice during this act joined his palms, in a feeble 
endeavour to elicit a sound — they emitted a solitary noise, 
without an echo — there was no deep to answer to his deep. 
G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. The third act at length 

10 brought him on the scene which was to warm the piece, pro- 
gressively, to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A 
philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G., as it 
approached. The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held 
forth upon the stage, and there was a promise of a fight. The 

15 pit roused themselves on this extraordinary occasion, and, as 
their manner is, seemed disposed to make a ring, — when sud- 
denly, Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the tables 
upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman (who, by-the-way, 
should have had his sister) baulks his humour, and the pit's 

20 reasonable expectation at the same time, with some speeches 
out of the "New Philosophy against Duelling." The audience 
were here fairly caught — their courage was up, and on the 
alert — a few blows, ding-dong^ as R — s, the dramatist, after- 
wards expressed it to me, might have done the business, when 

25 their most exquisite moral sense was suddenly called in to assist 
in the mortifying negation of their own pleasure. They could 
not applaud for disappointment ; they would not condemn for 
morality's sake. The interest stood stone still ; and John's 
manner was not calculated to unpetrify it. It was Christmas 

30 time, and the atmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic 
affections. One began to cough — his neighbour sympathized 
with him — till a cough became epidemical. But when, from 
being half artificial in the pit, the cough got frightfully natural- 
ized among the fictitious persons of the drama, and Antonio 



COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 22$ 

himself (albeit it was not set down in the stage directions) 
seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the dis- 
tresses of the author and his friends, — then G. " first knew 
fear " ; and, mildly turning to M., intimated that he had not 
been aware that Mr. K. laboured under a cold ; and that the 5 
performance might possibly have been postponed with advan- 
tage for some nights farther — still keeping the same serene 
countenance, while M. sweat like a bull. It would be invidious 
to pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. In vain did the 
plot thicken in the scenes that followed; in vain did the dia- 10 
logue wax more passionate and stirring, and the progress of 
the sentiment point more and more clearly to the arduous 
development which impended. In vain the action was accel- 
erated, while the acting stood still. From the beginning John 
had taken his stand; had wound himself up to an even tenor 15 
of stately declamation, from which no exigence of dialogue or 
person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of 
his rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was 
preposterous ; for, from the onset, he had planted himself, as 
upon a terrace, on an eminence vastly above the audience, and 20 
he kept that sublime level to the end. He looked from his 
throne of elevated sentiment upon the under-world of spectators 
with a most sovereign and becoming contempt. There was excel- 
lent pathos delivered out to them : an they would receive it, so ; 
an they would not receive it, so ; there was no offence against 25 
decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an 
irreverent symptom of a sound was to be heard. The proces- 
sion of verbiage stalked on through four and five acts, no one 
venturing to predict what would come of it, when towards the 
winding up of the latter, Antonio, with an irrelevancy that 30 
seemed to stagger Elvira herself — for she had been coolly 
arguing the point of honour with him — suddenly whips out a 
poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The eifect was as 
if a murder had been committed in cold blood. The whole 



226 COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY 

house rose up in clamorous indignation, demanding justice. 
The feeUng rose far above hisses. I beheve at that instant, if 
they could have got him, they would have torn the unfortunate 
author to pieces. Not that the act itself was so exorbitant, or 
5 of a complexion different from what they themselves would 
have applauded upon another occasion, in a Brutus or an 
Appius, but for want of attending to Antonio's words, which 
palpably led to the expectation of no less dire an event, 
instead of being seduced by his manner, which seemed to 

10 promise a sleep of a less alarming nature than it was his cue 
to inflict upon Elvira : they found themselves betrayed into 
an accompliceship of murder, a perfect misprision of parricide, 
while they dreamed of nothing less. M., I believe, was the 
only person who suffered acutely from the failure ; for G. 

15 thenceforward, with a serenity unattainable but by the true 
philosophy, abandoning a precarious popularity, retired into 
his fasthold of speculation, — the drama in which the world 
was to be his tiring-room, and remote posterity his applauding 
spectators at once and actors. 



NOTES 



I, A CHARACTER OF THE LATE ELIA 

BY A FRIEND 

London Magazine^ January, 1823 

This paper was first published by Lamb in the interval between the 
two series of Essays of Elia. He seems to have intended it partly as 
a farewell to his readers, and partly as a piece of mystification. With 
the omission of the latter part, it was reprinted by Moxon in 1833 as 
an appropriate preface to Lamb's last essays. This apologetic self- 
revelation and humorous analysis of his own character, half ironical 
though it be, shows the causes of his unpopularity and is a valuable 
commentary on his style. 

1. the late Elia. When Lamb began to write for the London Maga- 
zine in August, 1820, he assumed the pen name of Elia (pronounced by 
him Ell-ia) in memory of an obscure Italian clerk of this name whom 
he had known at the South-Sea House. 

1 3-4. to see his papers collected into a volume. This volume included 
Elia's twenty-eight contributions to the London Magazine, August, 1820, 
to November, 1822, and an essay on Valentine^ s Day from the Indicator 
of February, 1821. It was issued from the press of Taylor and Hessey, 
London, 1823. "Eleven years after," says Mr. Charles Kent, "before 
the author's death, it was already out of print, a stray copy only by rare 
chance being purchasable at a book-stall." 

I4-5. the London Magazine appeared in January, 1820, as a monthly 
under the editorial direction of John Scott. Thirteen months later, 
when Scott was killed in a duel with Christie of Blackwood's Magazine, 
the London passed into the hands of Taylor and Hessey. In the five 
years of its existence, though not financially successful, it had many 
famous contributors, among them being Lamb, De Quincey, Hazlitt, 
Procter, Hood, Cary, Cunningham, Montgomery, Keats, Mitford, 
Reynolds, and Carlyle. 

227 



228 NOTES 

1 7. Saint Bride's: a church just off Fleet Street, London. It is 
the burial place of Richardson, and is closely associated with Milton, 
Lovelace, and Dr. Johnson. 

1 9. his friends T. and H. : Taylor and Hessey, the pubHshers of the 
London. 

1 11. Janus wept: a play on the name of the Roman god and the 
pen name of Wainwright, " Janus Weathercock," a contributor to the 
London of " articles of flashy assumption." This clever, heartless, 
voluptuous coxcomb subsequently committed murder. 

1 lJ-12. The gentle P r: Bryan Weller Procter, better known 

as " Barry Cornwall" (i 790-1874), a poet of the Cockney school, who 
made considerable reputation as a writer of sea songs. He was much 
liked by Lamb and wrote a memoir of him. 

lis. Allan C. : Cunningham (1784-1842), a Scotch poet and man 
of letters, who was at this time (1823) secretary to Chantrey, a London 
sculptor. He was the author of popular songs, stories, and biographies 
of eminent British painters, sculptors, and architects. 

1 13. nobly forgetful : a reference to some unappreciative remarks 
about the Scotch in Lamb's essay on Imperfect Sympathies. 

1 14-15. a " Tale of Lyddalcross " : one of Cunjiinghatn^s Ti-aditional 
Tales of the Peasantry. 

2 8. a country-boy : Coleridge, ^ee note to Christ'' s Hospital. 

3 24. intimados : intimate friends. 

4 4. Marry: an old English interjection or expletive, derived from 
Mary. 

4 6-7. proceeded a statist : i.e. discoursed as eloquently as a statesman. 

4 16. Shacklewell. See note to the South-Sea House. 

4 28-29. toga virilis : the garment assumed by a young Roman on 
reaching manhood. 

4 33. This passage, inclosed in brackets, appeared in the London, 
but was suppressed in the volume of the Last Essays of Ella (1833). 

4 34. his cousin Bridget : the author's sister Mary. 

5 7. the East India House. The old house of the East India Com- 
pany (established in 1600) stood at the corner of Leadenhall and Lime 
Streets, London. 

5 29. facetious Bishop Corbet: Richard Corbet (1582-1635), bishop 
of Oxford and Norwich. He was the author of Farewell to the Fairies, 
and other light verse. 

5 29. Hoole, John ( 1 727-1 803) : an English poet who translated Tasso's 
Jerusalem Delivered, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and other Italian poems. 

6 30-31. God assoil him therefor : i.e. May God forgive him for it. > 



NOTES 229 

5 31. Walton, Izaak (i 593-1683): a noted author who was a shop- 
keeper in London until the civil war. Lamb wrote of him to Words- 
worth as hallowing " any page in which his revered name appears." 
His most famous book is the Complete Angler (1653), which Lamb 
" always loved as it were a living friend." 

61. bon-vivant: jolly companion. 

6 14. " weaved-up follies " : a phrase from Shakespeare's Richard II, 
IV, i, 228. 

IL THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE 

London Magazine, August, 1820 

This essay was first printed under the title of Recollections of the 
South-Sea House. Lamb held a subordinate clerkship in this house 
for an unknown period between 1789 and 1792. It appears from the 
official records of the company for the latter year that his brother 
John was then holding the position of deputy accountant. 

6 15. the Bank : the Bank of England. 

617. the Flower Pot: a London inn from which the coach for the 
north started. 

6 18. Dalston or Shacklewell: northern suburbs of London where 
rents were low, and where consequently many " lean annuitants," per- 
sons of small yearly income, resided. 

7 12-13. the two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty : George I 
(17 14-1727) and George II (i 727-1 760). 

7 18. pieces of eight: a name given by the buccaneers to the Span- 
ish piaster, which was divided into eight silver reals. It was first' 
coined in 1479, ^^<i was about equal in value to our dollar. 

7 19. " unsunned heap " : a phrase from Milton's Cotmis, 1. 398. 

7 19. Mammon : a Syriac word meaning riches ; personified as the 
god of riches by Spenser, Faerie Queene, II, 7, and Milton, Paradise 
Lost, I, 678. 

7 21. that famous Bubble : the South-Sea Bubble, a colossal finan- 
cial scheme which originated about 171 1 and collapsed in 1720. It 
was one of the principal events of George I's reign. For a detailed 
account of the series of ruinous speculations connected with this and 
other bubble companies, see Montgomery's English History, p. 311, or 
Green's Short History of the English People, p. 698. 

7 32. a superfcetation of dirt : a secondary engendering, i.e. a double 
layer, of dirt. 



230 NOTES 

8 6. Titan. The Titans were a race of giants, children of Uranus 
(heaven) and Gaea (earth), who made war against the Olympian deities. 

8 6-7. Vaux's superhuman plot : the plot of Guido Vaux, or Guy 
Fawkes, and other conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament 
in 1605. 

9 1. Herculaneum : one of the cities buried by the eruption of 
Vesuvius in a.d. 79. The first systematic excavations were made 
under French rule between 1S06 and 181 5. 

9 1. pounce-boxes : boxes with perforated lids for sprinkling a fine 
powder on manuscript to prevent the ink from spreading. 

9 22. Cambro-Briton : a Welshman. Cambria was the legendary and 
ancient Latin name of Wales. 

9 27. Maccaronies (properly spelled Macaronies) : the name usually 
applied to English fops during the later part of the eighteenth century. 

10 1. Anderton's : a coffeehouse on Fleet Street. 

10 14. Rosamond's Pond : a sheet of water in St. James Park, which 
was filled up in 1770. It was " long consecrated to disastrous love and 
elegiac poetry." " Fair Rosamond " was Jane Clifford, the mistress of 
Henry II, who, according to tradition, was compelled by the jealous 
Queen Eleanor to poison herself (1176). 

10 14-15. Mulberry Gardens : public gardens (now in the grounds of 
Buckingham Palace), so called from the mulberry trees planted by 
James I. 

10 15. Cheap, the old name of Cheapside, a street rich in historical 
associations. 

10 17. Hogarth, William (1697-1764): the famous English painter. 
See note on p. 273. 

10 18. Noon. The scene of " Noon " is a French Huguenot chapel 
in Hog Lane. 

1019-20. Louis the Fourteenth; King of France, 1 643-1 7 1 5. By his 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which had since 1598 granted 
to the Huguenots political equality and rights with the Catholics, he 
drove about fifty thousand industrious Protestant families from France, 
prostrated the country, and paved the way for the Revolution. 

10 22. the Seven Dials : a locality about midway between the Brit- 
ish Museum and Trafalgar Square, and once notorious as a center of 
poverty. It took its name from a column with seven sundials which 
marked the meeting of seven streets. 

10 23. Thomas Tame : he succeeded Evans as deputy cashier in 1793. 

10 25-26. Westminster Hall : built by William II. It is now used as 
an entrance to the Houses of Parliament. 



NOTES 231 

10 34. its original state of white paper : a figure used by John Locke, 
who denied the existence of innate ideas, to illustrate the condition of 
the child's mind before the use of the senses. 

11 1. posed : puzzled him by putting a question. 

11 9-10. unfortunate house of Derwentwater. James Radcliffe (1689- 
17 16), Earl of Derwentwater, was an English Catholic nobleman who 
supported the Pretender in the rebellion of 17 15, and was beheaded in 
London in the following year. 

11 19. John Tipp : he was succeeded in the office of deputy account- 
ant by John Lamb, and became accountant in 1792. 

11 24-25. with other notes than to the Orphean lyre : a quotation from 
Paradise Lost, III, 17. 

12 5. He sate like Lord Midas: i.e. v/ithout any skill in judging of 
music. Justice Midas is a character in a play by Kane O'Hara (1764). 
When, in a singing contest, he awards the prize to Pan, it turns out 
that Apollo was one of the competitors. The classical King Midas 
was punished with asses' ears for a similar offense. 

13 12. " greatly find quarrel in a straw " : a quotation from Hamlet^ 
IV, iv, 53-56. 

13 20. the dusty dead : a phrase from Macbeth, V, v, 22. 

13 26-27. in two forgotten volumes. Miscellaneous Works in Verse and 
Prose of the late Henry Man is a collection of light and amusing papers 
on a variety of subjects. Man became deputy secretary in 1793. 

13 28. Barbican: a street in London where Milton lived in 1645. 
Leigh Hunt's pig in his essay On the Graces a7id Anxieties of Pig- 
Driving "was not to be comforted in Barbican." 

13 31. '* new-born gauds " : a phrase from Troilu^ and Cressida, III, 

iii, 175- 

13 32. Public Ledgers . . . Chronicles. Two prominent London news- 
papers of the eighteenth century. 

13 32-34. Chatham, Earl of (1708-1778), William Pitt; Shelbnme, 
Earl of (i 737-1 805), William Petty, as prime minister recognized 
American independence; Rockingham, Marquis of (1730-1782), Charles 
Wentworth, preceded Shelbume as prime minister ; Howe, Sir William 
(d. 1814), a British general in the American war; Burgoyne, John, a 
British general who surrendered to the Americans at Saratoga in 1777 ; 
Clinton, Sir Henry, a British general in the same war. 

14 1-2. Keppel: an English admiral; Wilkes, John (1727-1797), 
editor of the North Britain, was arrested on the charge of accusing 
the king of falsehood, but liberated under the order of Chief Justice 
Pratt (Charles; 1713-1794), afterwards Lord Chancellor and Earl of 



2 32 NOTES 

Camden ; Sawbridge and Bull, Lord Mayors of London in latter part of 
the eighteenth century; Dunning, John (1731-1783), Lord Ashburton, 
author of a bill in the House of Commons to diminish the influence 
of the Crown ; Richmond, probably a member of the Rockingham 
ministry. 

14 5. Plumer, Richard : master of the Hertfordshire mansion in 
which Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was housekeeper for fifty 
years ; hence his interest in the family. Plumer was deputy secretary 
in 1800. 

14 7. the sinister bend : also called " the bastard bar," a term in 
heraldry indicating illegitimacy. 

14 12. bachelor-uncle. According to the family pedigree found in 
Cussans' Hertfoj-dskire, Walter Plumer, the uncle of William Plumer, 
was not a bachelor. 

14 18. Cave came off cleverly : an inaccuracy of Lamb's. Cave, not 
Plumer, was cited before the House of Commons on a breach of 
privilege for having challenged a frank given to the Duchess of Marl- 
borough by Walter Plumer, M.P. See Johnson's Life of Cave. 

14 24. pastoral M : T. Maynard, who was chief clerk of the old 

annuities and three-per-cents from 1788 to 1793, and who, according 
to Lamb's Key, hanged himself. 

14 26. that song sung by Amiens : As You Like It, II, vii. 

15 10-11. peradventure the very names . . . are fantastic: an example 
of Lamb's fondness for mystification. The names in this essay are not 
fictitious but are found in the Royal Calendar and other records. 

15 11-12. like Henry Pimpernel, and old John Naps of Greece. These 
names are mentioned in the Induction to the Ta?ning of the Shrew as 
never having existed. 

Review Questions. 1. What is Lamb's attitude to his reader? 2. 
Where does he show a fondness for the past ? 3. Find indications of 
his business training. 4. What impression do you get of his scholar- 
ship and range of reading ? 5. Analyze the humor in his characteriza- 
tion of Evans, Tame, Tipp, and Plumer. 6. Find examples of Lamb's 
use of the pun. 7. Explain the following phrases : " his mind was in 
its original state of white paper," decus et solamen, " Orphean lyre," 
" like Lord Midas," " nib a pen," " wet a wafer," " triple calumniations 
{£. s. d.)," "superfluity of ciphers," " Conduit in Cheap," and "night's 
wheels." 8. Note use of the following words : Titan, Herculaneum, 
Cambro-Briton, Maccaronies, Whig, gibcat, hypochondry, pounce-boxes, 
battening, manes, tomes, rubric, quirk, and gibes. 



NOTES 233 

III. OXFORD IN THE VACATION 

London Magazine, October, 1820 

This second contribution from Elia was given the place of honor in 
the London. At the close was the date of its composition, " August 5th, 
1^20," and the words " From my rooms facing the Bodleian." On 
leaving Christ's Hospital, Lamb was prevented by poverty and physical 
infirmity from entering Oxford or Cambridge with his more fortunate 
schoolmates Coleridge, Hunt, Dyer, Field, and Barnes. He loved, 
however, to spend his annual holidays amid the associations of those 
great universities. The charm which these visits had for him is touch- 
ingly recorded in his Cambridge sonnet, 

" I was not trained in Academic bowers." 

15 19. Vivares, Frangois (i 709-1 780): a French landscape painter 
who went to London at the age of eighteen and became one of the 
founders of landscape engraving in England. 

15 19. Woollett, William (i 735-1 785) : the most distinguished of the 
English landscape engravers. 

15 25. notched and crept scrivener : an attorney or money lender with 
close-cut hair. " Notched " may refer to his desk or his quill or the 
tallies by which he kept his accounts. 

15 28. agnize : acknowledge. Cf. Othello, I, iii, 232. 

16 25. " Andrew and John, men famous in old times " : probably para- 
phrased from Milton, Paradise Regained, II, 7. Lamb refers to those 
days of the calendar which were once observed as religious holidays in 
honor of certain saints. 

16 28. the old Basket Prayer-book: a little duodecimo prayer-book 
(1749), so named from the publisher T. Baskett (misspelled by Lamb). 

16 28-29. Peter in his uneasy posture : according to tradition this 
apostle was crucified head downward. The day sacred to him in the 
calendar is June 29. 

16 29. holy Bartlemy : Saint Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, 
commonly called Nathanael. Tradition says that he was flayed alive. 
The day sacred to him is August 24. 

16 30. the famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti (Lamb's spelhng) : a paint- 
ing of Apollo flaying the satyr, by the Spanish-Neapolitan artist, Jusepe 
Ribera Spagnoletto (i 588-1656). 

17 5. " far off their coming shone ": a paraphrase from i'^r^^/j-^ Z^j'/, 
VI, 768. 



234 NOTES 

17 17. Selden, John (i 584-1654): a jurist, antiquarian, orientalist, 
and author of legal and theological works. He represented Oxford in 
Parliament, and was afterwards Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 
He was one of the most learned men of the century. 

17 17. Archbishop Usher, James (15S0-1656) : an Irish theologian and 
scholar who wrote a notable work on biblical chronology. He became 
primate of Ireland and took sides with Charles I. , 

17 19. the mighty Bodley : the Bodleian Library of Oxford Univer- 
sity, which contains about four hundred and sixty thousand books, 
twenty-seven thousand manuscripts, and fifty thousand coins. It was 
first opened in 1488, but was refounded by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545- 
161 3), an English scholar and diplomat. 

17 27. I seem admitted ad eundem : admitted without loss of class 
standing in going from one university to another. 

17 29. a Sizar at Cambridge and a Servitor at Oxford were origi- 
nally paid students who were exempt from paying the ordinary fees, but 
waited on the tables at the mess or performed other menial duties. 

17 30. a Gentleman Commoner : a student who paid full fees and 
enjoyed special privileges. 

18 5. Christ's : Christ Church, one of the largest and most fashion- 
able colleges of Oxford, founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525. 

18 5. Magdalen : St. Mary Magdalen College of Oxford, founded by 
Bishop Waynflete in 1457. 

18 13-14. spits which have cooked for Chaucer. There is no evidence 
that Chaucer (i340?-i40o) was ever a student at either Oxford or 
Cambridge. 

18 16. a Manciple : the officer who had the care of purchasing food 
for the college. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue, 567. 

18 22. what half Januses are we: Janus was the god of the rising 
and setting sun, and was represented with two faces. 

19 12-13. Herculanean raker. Some charred papyrus rolls were found 
in a buried library at Herculaneum. 

19 13. the three witnesses : a reference to the disputed passage in 
I John v. 7. 

19 14. Person, Richard (i 759-1808) : a professor at Cambridge, who 
was a noted Greek scholar and editor of the classics. 

19 15. G. D. : George Dyer (i 755-1841), one of Lamb's schoolmates 
at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards a student at Cambridge. Later he 
became a booksellers' drudge, compiling indexes and editing the Valpy 
edition of the classics. His best known works are his History of the 
University and Colleges of Cambridge and 2. Life of Robert Robijtson. 



NOTES 235 

His awkwardness, absent-mindedness, bland credulity, and pedantry 
made him the butt of Lamb's affectionate banter and practical jokes. 
He is the hero of Ella's essay A?nicus Redivivus. 

19 17. Oriel : a college of Oxford, founded by Adam de Brome and 
Edward II in 1326. 

19 20. a tall Scapula. Scapula pirated Stephen's Thesaurus Linguae 
Graecae in 1 530. A tall book is one whose leaves are not cut down in 
binding. 

203. Clifford's Inn: one of the inns of chancery in London, origi- 
nally a law school dating from the reign of Edward III. 

20 7. " in calm and sinless peace " : a reminiscence of Wordsworth's 
White Doe of Ry I stone, 1. 48. 

21 9. the Temple. See note on The Old Benchers of the Inner 
Temple. 

21 12. our friend M.'s : Basil Montagu, Q. C, editor of Bacon. 

21 20. Mrs. M. : Mrs. Montagu, mentioned in Carlyle's Reminiscences^ 
and called by Irving " a noble lady." 

21 21. Queen Lar : the chief of the domestic divinities of the Roman 
household. 

21 21. pretty A. S. : Mrs. Montagu's daughter, Anne Skepper. She 
afterwards married Procter, who vouches for the truth of the incident. 

21 28. like another Sosia: a slave in Plautus' play Amphitryon. Mer- 
cury is disguised as the double of Sosia, who is thus led to doubt his 
own identity. 

22 2. Mount Tabor: according to tradition the scene of the Trans- 
figuration. 

22 3. Parnassus : the resort of the Muses. 

22 3. co-sphered with Plato: i.e. absorbed in philosophic reflections. 
The ancients believed that the souls of the great dead were stationed 
in spheres or orbits. Cf. Milton, // Penseroso, 88-92. 

22 3. Harrington, James (1611-1677): author of the Commonwealth 
of Oceana, a treatise on civil government, modeled on More's Utopia. 

22 9. This passage in brackets appeared in the original London 
article but was suppressed by Lamb in the volume of 1823. 

22 10. in the house of " pure Emanuel " : Emanuel College, Cambridge. 

22 23. Give me Agur's wish. See Proverbs xxx. 8, 9. 

23 14-15. Bath, Buxton, Scarborough, Harrogate. These popular Eng- 
lish watering places may be located on the map. 

23 15-16. The Cam and the Isis : the two rivers on which Cambridge 
and Oxford universities respectively are situated. 

23 16-17. " better than all the waters of Damascus." See 2 Kings v. 12. 



236 NOTES 

23 18. Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains : the mountains from 
which the pilgrims in Bunyan's Pilgrim'' s Progress, Part I, had a view 
of the Celestial City. 

23 20-21. the Interpreter of the House Beautiful: a character in Pil- 
grim's Progress, Part I, lord of a house a little beyond the Wicket Gate, 
He symbolizes the Holy Ghost, 

Review Questions. 1. Explain the figure at the close of the third 
paragraph. 2. Has this essay the true flavor of university life and 
scholarship ? 3. Explain the literary allusions in the last paragraph. 
4. Analyze the characterization of Dyer. 5. Find an apostrophe and 
compare with similar passages in Raleigh, Byron, and De Quincey. 
6. Note the rambling construction of the essay. 7. Note the phrase 
" the better Jude^ Who were the two Judes .? 8. Explain the follow- 
hig : agnize, arride, beadsman, Joseph's vest, varies lectiones, " those 
sciential apples," Mount Tabor, Parnassus. 



IV. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS 
AGO 

London Magazine, November, 1820 

The Gentleman's Magazine for June, 181 3, contained an article by 
Lamb entitled Recollections of Chrisfs Hospital. This essay was 
reprinted in Ollier's edition in 1818, and is referred to in the opening 
sentences of the present paper. Under the mask of Elia, Lamb here 
writes in the character of his old schoolmate Coleridge. The earlier 
essay was a serious and enthusiastic appreciation of the dignity and 
value of the famous Blue-Coat School ; the latter was a supplementary 
chapter on the humors and hardships of the boys due to the peculiar 
traditions and discipline of the school. On the same subject Coleridge 
has written in his Biographia Literaria, Chap. I, and Leigh Hunt in 
his Autobiography, Chaps. Ill and IV. 

24 18. banyan . . . days : the days on which sailors have no allow- 
ance of meat. The name is taken from the Hindoo devotees who 
abstain from flesh. 

24 22. caro equina : horseflesh. 

25 1. the Tishbite : the prophet Elijah. 

26 15-16. the Lions in the Tower. The royal menagerie formerly kept 
in this the most ancient fortress and state prison of London was removed 
to the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1834. 



NOTES 



237 



26 18. L.'s governor: Samuel Salt, the old Bencher of the Inner 
Temple. He was called to the bench in 1782 and died in 1792. He 
occupied two sets of chambers in Crown-office Row, kept a carriage, 
and had two indoor servants besides the Lambs. Lamb's father, John, 
was in his service for forty-five years as clerk and factotum, his mother 
as housekeeper. Salt provided for them generously by various bequests 
at his death. Charles owed his admission to Christ's Hospital to a 
friend of Salt's. 

27 4. There was one H : Hodges, according to Lamb's Key. 

27 8. My friend Tobin. Little more than his name is known. In a 
letter to Wordsworth in 1806 Lamb speaks of a visit from Tobin, and 
records his death in a letter to Southey in 1815. Tobin was Godwin's 
pen name in his tragedy Antonio. 

27 18. Caligula's minion. The emperor's favorite horse, Incitatus, was 
fed at a marble manger with gilded oats. He was made a consul and 
a priest. 

282. paintings by Verrio. In Newgate Street is seen the hall, or 
eating room, one of the noblest in England, adorned with enormously 
long paintings by Verrio and others, and with an organ. See Leigh 
Hunt's Autobiography, Chap. Ill, p. 57. 

28 3. Wue-coat boys. Christ's Hospital was popularly called the Blue- 
Coat School from the dress of the pupils, which was the ordinary costume 
of boys in humble station during the time of the Tudors. It consisted 
of a blue drugget gown with ample skirts, a yellow vest, knee breeches of 
Russian duck, yellow worsted stockings, a leathern girdle, and a little 
black worsted cap usually carried in the hand. This costume is still 
retained. Christ's was founded as a charity school by King Edward VI 
on the site of the monastery of the Gray Friars in Newgate Street. 

28 8. "To feed our mind with idle portraiture": a translation from 
memory of Virgil's line, animtmi pictura pascit inani {Aineid, I, 464). 

2816-17. "'Twas said. He ate strange flesh": quoted at random 
from Antony and Cleopatra, I, iv. 

29 14. Mr. Hathaway. We of the grammar school used to call him 
" the yeoman " on account of Shakespeare having married the daughter 
of a man of that name, designated as " a substantial yeoman " (Leigh 
Hunt, Autobiography, Chap. Ill, p. 59). 

30 8. Bedlam: the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, 
originally a priory dating from about 1247, but now used as an asylum 
for the insane. 

30 33. Holy Paul : St. Paul's Cathedral, in which stands the statue of 
John Howard. 



238 NOTES 

30 25. auto da f6 (Portuguese) : act of faith. The ceremony used 
in Spain and Portugal in executing the judgment of the tribunal of the 
Inquisition. There was a procession of monks, penitents, and heretics 
through the streets to the church, where, after a sermon, the condemned 
were handed over to the civil authorities to be strangled or burned. 

3026-27. " watchet weeds " : blue clothes. 

31 24. San Benito : the short linen dress, on which demons were 
painted, w^om by the heretics condemned by the Inquisition. 

32 2. Rev. James Boyer. According to Lamb, Coleridge, and Leigh 
Hunt he was an excellent teacher and a man of wide learning and 
common sense, but much feared on account of his violent temper and 
severe discipline. See Coleridge's Biographia Literaria., Vol. I, 145, 
Table Talk, p. 85, and Hunt's Autobiography, Chap. Ill, 66. 

32 3. Rev, Matthew Field. Hunt gives a delightfully humorous sketch 
of him in his Autobiogj-aphy, III, 65, corroborative of Lamb's opinion. 

32 24. " insolent Greece or haughty Rome " : from Ben Jonson's Lines 
on Shakespeare. 

32 25. Peter Wilkins, The Life and Adventures 0/ (ly^i) : a grotesque 
romance by Robert Paltock of the imaginary island of Graundevolet, 
inhabited by a race of winged people. 

32 34. Rousseau and John Locke. Lamb refers to their pedagogical 
theories. They helped to found the modern methods of training 
children on the principle of following their natural dispositions. 

33 10. Phaedrus : a Roman writer, originally a Macedonian slave, 
who lived in the first half of the first century a. d. 

33 16. a sort of Helots : a class of serfs among the ancient Spartans. 
They did not receive as severe training as their masters, and served 
only as light-armed troops in time of war. 

33 21. with a silence as deep, etc. : Pythagoras, the Samite, founder of 
a famous mathematical and philosophical school at Crotona in southern 
Italy in the sixth century B.C. The pupils were banded in a religious frater- 
nity where everything was kept a profound secret from the outer world. 

34 3-4. Ululantes . . . Tartarus: probably an allusion to Virgil's 
yEneid, VI, 548 se^. 

34 8. Flaccus's quibble about Rex. See Horace, Satires, I, 7, 35. 

34 9. tristis severitas in vultu. See Terence, Andrea, V, ii, 16. 

34 9. inspicere in patinas. See Terence, Adelphi, III, iii, 74. 

35 5. the Debates : in Parliament. 

35 22-23. The author of the Country Spectator. Ainger refers to an 
amusing account of the origin of this periodical, founded by Bishop Mid- 
dleton, in Mozley's Reminiscences of Oriel College, Vol. Ill, Addenda. 



NOTES 



239 



35 30-31 . First Grecian : the highest class, composed of picked boys 
who were preparing to enter one of the universities. 

35 33. Dr. T e : the Rev. Arthur William Trollope, the succes- 
sor of Boyle as head master. He retired from the school in 1827 and 
died soon afterwards. 

36 12. Th : the Right Hon. Sir Edward Thornton, minister to 

Portugal and to Brazil under Pitt. He was third wrangler at Cambridge 
in 1789. 

36 20. regni novitas : See Virgil's ^iieid, I, 563. 

36 29. poor S : Scott, died in Bedlam (Lamb's Key). 

36 29. ill-fated M : Maunde, dismissed school (Lamb's Key). 

36 30. " Finding some of Edward's race," etc. : quoted incorrectly from 
Matthew Prior's Cariiien ScEculare for 1700, st. viii, Edward being sub- 
stituted for Stuart. 

37 5. Mirandula : Coleridge. Mirandula is a variation of the name 
of Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), an Italian poet and student of 
Plato. 

37 7. Jamblichus : an Alexandrian philosopher of the third century, 
the founder of the Syrian school of Neo-Platonism. 

37 7. Plotinus (204-270 a.d.) : a Neo-Platonic philosopher of Egypt, 
who taught in Rome. 

37 11. " wit-combats." The quotation which follows is a close para- 
phrase of Fuller's account in the English Worthies of the wit-combats 
between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. 

37 12. C. V. Le G : Charles Valentine Le Grice, one of the 

Grecians at Christ's Hospital, afterwards a clergyman in his native 
county of Cornwall. He wrote a translation of Longus's pastoral 
romance Daphnis and Chloe. His brother Samuel was one of Lamb's 
stanchest friends. 

37 25. Nireus formosus : the son of Chiropus and Aglaia, and the 
handsomest Greek at the siege of Troy. 

37 32. the junior Le G- : Samuel Le Grice, who went into the 

army and died in the West Indies. He is mentioned in Lamb's letter 
to Coleridge just after the death of his mother. 

37 32. F '. Favell, a Grecian in the school, who was given a 

commission in the army and was killed in the Peninsula. Lamb wrote 
opposite the initial in his Key, " Favell left Cambridge because he was 
ashamed of his father, who was a house-painter there." He is the 
"poor W " of the Poor Relations. 

38 7. Ft : Frederick William Franklin. 

38 8. Marmaduke T : Marmaduke Thompson. 



240 NOTES 

Review Questions. 1. Find instances of Lamb's use of the sense of 
taste. 2. What is Lamb's method of making his style specific.'' 3. 
Point out differences in tone and local color between this essay and 
the preceding. 4. What were the relations of Lamb and Coleridge at 
school and afterwards ? 5. Where does the author show a fondness 
for mystification ? 6. Explain the allusion to Rousseau's and Locke's 
pedagogical theories. 7. Look up the biblical allusions in the essay. 
8. Examine Lamb's use of the parenthesis, 9. Explain the following : 
ultima supplicia, ululantes, Tartarus, and the Debates. 10. Who were 
Dante, Pindar, Homer, Terence, Cicero, Plato, and Xenophon.-* 



V. THE TWO RACES OF MEN 
London Magazine, December, 1820 

38 16. "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites." See Acts of the 
Apostles ii. 9. 

38 26. Alcibiades (450-404 B.C.) : a great Athenian statesman and 
general. See Plutarch's Lives. 

3826. Falstaff: a character in Shakespeare's King Henry /F" and 
Merry Wives of Windsor. He borrows from Mistress Quickly, Pistol, 
and others. For borrowing scenes, see i King Hetiry IV, III, ii ; and 
2 King Henry IV, I, ii ; II, i; and V, iv. 

38 26. Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729). For exaggerated stories of 
how Steele borrowed from Addison, see Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 

38 26-27. our late incomparable Brinsley : the brilliant wit and orator, 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), author of The Rivals and The 
School for Scandal. Being recklessly improvident, he was frequently 
in debt, and many stories are told of his boldness and cleverness in 
borrowing. See his Life by Thomas Moore, and Hazhtt's Lectm-es on 
the Comic Writers. 

39 3. Tooke, Home: the assumed name of John Home (1736-1812), 
an English politician and philologist, author of The Pantheon, etc. 
He was tried several times for libel and treason, and was at one time a 
member of Parliament. 

39 17. Candlemas : February 2, the day of the feast of the purifica- 
tion of the Virgin Mary. In Scotland it is one of the " term days " 
appointed for payments of money, interest, taxes, etc., and for entry to 
premises. See Brand's Popular Antiquities, Bohn ed. 

39 17. Feast of Holy Michael : September 29, one of the quarterly 
terms in England for paying rents, etc. See Chambers's Book of Days. 



■ NOTES 241 

39 18. lene tormentum : the mildest torture inflicted by the Inquisition. 
39 21. the true Propontic : the ancient name of the Sea of Marmora. 
Locate on the map and explain the comparison, 

39 33. Ralph Bigod, Esq. : John Fenwick, editor of the Albion. 
Talfourd says that " he edited several ill-fated newspapers in succes- 
sion, and was author of many libels, which did his employers no good 
and his Majesty's government no harm"; also that he was one of 
Lamb's associates who sometimes " left poor Lamb with an aching 
head and a purse exhausted by the claims of their necessities upon it " 
{^Letters of Charles La??ib, Chap. VII). 

40 13. " To slacken virtue, etc." : in Jesus' reply to Satan, Paradise 
Regained, II, 455. 

4029-30. with Comus, seemed pleased, etc. See Comus, 11. 152-155. 

42 4. Comberbatch, more properly Silas Tomkyn Comberback : the 
assumed name under which Coleridge enlisted in the King's Light 
Dragoons in 1 793. For the incident see Campbell's Life of Coleridge, 
p. 28. Lamb, who was a frequenter of bookshops, accumulated a large 
library containing many valuable works. Coleridge frequently borrowed 
from him, and sometimes forgot to return. See " Letter to Coleridge " 
of June 7, 1809, Talfourd ed., Vol. II, pp. 217-218. 

42 9. like the Guildhall giants. In the Guildhall, the ancient council 
hall of London (erected 1411-1431), stand two colossal and fanciful 
wooden figures called Gog and Magog. They were carved by Saunders 
in 1708. There is an old prophecy that when they fall, then only shall 
London fall. 

42 11. Opera Bonaventurae : Saint Giovanni di Fidenza Bonaven- 
tura '(1221-1274), an Italian philosopher and theological writer, sur- 
named Doctor Seraphicus. He was professor in Paris, general of the 
Franciscans, and a cardinal. 

42 13. Bellarmine : Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (i 542-1 621), a Jesuit 
theological controversialist, professor in the Luvain and Roman colleges. 

42 13. Holy Thomas: Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 ?-i274), sur- 
named Doctor Angelicus, an Italian theologian and scholastic philoso- 
pher of the Dominican order, who taught at Paris, Rome, and Bologna. 
See " Letter to Barton," Talfourd ed.. Vol. II, pr 297. 

42 14. Ascapart : a giant thirty feet high in the old romance Bevis of 
Hampton. 

42 24. Browne on Urn Burial : Sir Thomas Browne's Hydrotaphia, or 
Urn-Burial (1658), "a magnificent descant on the vanity of human life, 
based on the discovery of certain cinera'ry urns in Norfolk." See 
Saintsbury's Histc^ry of Elizabethan Literature, pp. 339, 340. 



242 



NOTES 



42 29. Dodsley's dramas: Robert Dodsley (i 703-1 764), an English 
bookseller and editor of the well-known Select Collection of Old Plays 
(12 vols., 1744), which was used by Lamb in preparing his Specimens 
of English Dramatic Poets. See " Letter to Manning,"" Talfourd ed.. 
Vol. II, p. 230. 

42 30. Vittoria Corombona, or The White Devil: a tragedy by Web- 
ster (16 1 2), one of the noblest and most perfect of the period. See 
Saintsbury's History of Elizabethati Literature, p. 275. 

42 32. Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) : by Robert Burton, " Democritus 
Junior," " the fantastic great old man," whose humorous and pedantic 
vein powerfully influenced Lamb's style. 

From the olden time 
Of authorship, thy patent should be dated, 
And thou with Marvell, Browne and Burton mated. 

— Bernard Barton, Sonnet. 

See Lamb's "Letter to Manning" of March 17, 1800, in which he 
speaks of Coleridge having urged him to forge supposed manuscripts 
of Burton, Talfourd ed., Vol. I, p. 116. The Anatomy of Melancholy is 
the result of many years of study of men and books, and abounds in 
quotations from authors of all ages and countries. It is divided into 
three parts treating of the causes and symptoms of melancholy, of its 
cure, and of erotic and religious melancholy. 

42 33. the Complete Angler. See note, p. 321. See also " Letters to 
Coleridge" of October 28, 1796, and "to Miss Fryer" of February 14, 
1834. 

42 34. John Buncle : the title of a book by Thomas Amory (1691 ?- 
1788), so called from the name of the hero, who is a "prodigious hand 
at matrimony, divinity, a song and a peck." Amory was a stanch 
Unitarian, an earnest moralist, a humorist, and an eccentric, — traits 
which must have appealed strongly to Lamb. 

43 13. deodands : the term applied in old English law to personal chat- 
tels which had caused the death of a person, and which were forfeited to 
the crown to be distributed in alms. The law was abolished in 1846. 

43 16. C. : Coleridge. 

43 19. spiteful K. : " James Kenney, the dramatist, chiefly remem- 
bered now as the creator of Jeremy Diddler in the well-known farce 
of Raising the Wind" (Kent). He married a French woman and lived 
for several years in Versailles, where Lamb visited him in 1822. 

43 22. Margaret Newcastle: Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle (1624- 
1673), maid of honor to Queen Henrietta Maria, and "distinguished 



NOTES 243 

for her faithful attachment to her lord in his long exile during the 
time of the Commonwealth and for her indefatigable pursuit of liter- 
ature " (Chambers). 

44 4. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (i 554-1628): author of poems, 
tragedies, and a Life of Sidney^ all composed in a severely grave, sen- 
tentious style. He was stabbed to death by an old servant, who found 
that he was not mentioned in his master's will. 

44 7. Zimmermann on Solitude: a book published in 1755 by Johann 
Georg von Zimmermann (i 728-1 795), a Swiss physician at the court of 
Hanover, and author of several medical and philosophical works. 

44 10. S. T. C. : a third alias for Coleridge, to puzzle the reader. 

44 16. Daniel, Samuel (1562-1619): the author of much poetry and 
prose, the principal of which are The History of the Civil Wars, the 
Delia Sonnets, and The Complaint of Rosamond. His best poem is his 
Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland, a favorite with Wordsworth. 
His command of pure English caused him to be called the "well- 
languaged Daniel." 

Review Questions. 1. Analyze the humor of Lamb's {a) classification 
of men, (^) biblical allusions, {c) puns, {d) Comberback's sophistry, 
{e) exaggerations, (/) figures and illustrations, {g) characterization. 
2. How has a bookish flavor been imparted to the whole essay } 3. 
What hint is given of Lamb's favorite authors ? 4. Find the secret of 
the tone of distinction in the style. 5. Note the friendly attitude, of 
Lamb to {a) his readers and (b) his characters. 



VI. NEW YEAR'S EVE 
London Magazine, January, 1821 

This essay has a special interest on account of its tone of melan- 
choly skepticism and its connection with Lamb's controversy with his 
friend Robert Southey. The views expressed in this essay as also in 
Grace before Meat and Witches and Other Night Fears had caused the 
Laureate to lament, in a review in the Quarterly, the *| absence of a 
sounder religious feeling " in Elia's writings. Speculating in his reply on 
the particular essay which had given color to the charge, Lamb wrote, 
"... Or was it that on the ' New Year ' — in which I have described the 
feelings of the merely natural man, on a consideration of the amazing 
change, which is supposable to take place on our removal from this 
fleshly scene t " (Talfourd ed., Vol. I, pp. 338, 339). 



244 NOTES 

" Lamb seems in this essay," says Canon Ainger, '* to have ■written 
with the express purpose of presenting the reverse side of a passage in 
his favorite Religio Medici. Sir Thomas Browne had there written, ' I 
thank God I have not those strait Ugaments, or narrow obligations to 
the world, as to dote on life, or be convulsed and tremble at the name 
of death.' . . , Lamb clung to the things he saw and loved — the friends, 
the books, the streets, and crowds around him, and he was not ashamed 
to confess that death meant for him the absence of all these, and that he 
could not look it steadfastly in the face" {^Life of Lamb, p. 130). 

45 12. " I saw the skirts [train] of the departing Year " : from Cole- 
ridge's Ode to the Departing Year (1790). 

45 19. ** Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest " : from Pope's 
Odyssey, Book XV, 1. 84. 

46 2. Alice W n : " Alice Winterton " (Lamb's Key), the fair- 
haired Hertfordshire girl, and sweetheart of Lamb's boyhood, whose 
real name was Ann Simmons. The Anna of his sonnets and this Alice, 
also referred to in Blakesmoor and Dream Children, were the same 
person, and it is a tradition of the Widford villagers that Rosamund 
Gray was drawn from this his first and only love. Ann Simmons married 
Bartrum, a wealthy pawnbroker of Princes Street, Leicester Square. 
For the sonnets, see Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, pp. loi, 102. 

46 24. changeling. It was an old superstition that infants were 
sometimes stolen from their cradles by fairies who left their own weak- 
ling elves, called " changelings," in their place. In the Elizabethan 
writers are numerous references to this belief. In Middleton and Row- 
ley's play The Changeling the word means simply " idiot." 

46 34. From what have I not fallen, etc. See Lamb's sonnet on 
Innocence (1795) : " We were two pretty babes," etc. 

48 14. seek Lavinian shores : an adaptation of Virgil's yEneid, I, 2, 3, 
Laviniaque venit litora. 

48 30. '* Sweet assurance of a look " : from Matthew Royden's Elegy 
on Sir Philip Sidney. 

49 7-8. Phoebus' sickly sister : the moon. In the Greek myths Apollo, 
or Phoebus, was the sun god; Diana, Cynthia, or Phoebe, the moon 
goddess. See Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 59-65. 

49 8. Canticles : The Song of Solomon viii. 8, 9. 

49 9. I hold with the Persian : the Zoroastrian sun worship had its 
home in Persia. 

4917. Friar John: a tall, lean, wide-mouthed, long-nosed friar of 
Seville in Rabelais' Gargantua. He swore like a trooper and fought 
furiously with the staff of a cross. 



NOTES 245 

4925-26. " lie down with kings and emperors in death " : a quotation 
from Browne's Hydrotaphia, or Urn-Burial. 

50 7. Mr. Cotton, Charles (1630-1687) : a poet, angler, and friend of 
Izaak Walton. He is described as " a cheerful, witty and accomplished 
man." He translated Montaigne's Essays. 

52 1. Helicon: a mountain in Greece, from which flowed the foun- 
tains Hippocrene and Aganippe, the, fabled resorts of the Muses. 

52 1. Spa: a general name for European watering places, the oldest 
being situated in a town of that name in Belgium. 

Review Questions. 1. What is the prevailing tone of this essay, — 
cheerful or gloomy, humorous or melancholy ? 2. Where has the author 
used epigram, contrast, short sentences ? 3. What do we learn of his 
religious views, character as a child, tastes, habits, and views ? 4. Note 
the blending of fact with fiction. 5. Explain the biblical allusions, the 
reference to the household gods, and use of " reluct " and " burgeon." 



VII. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 

Lojtdon Magazine, February, 1821 

In reprinting this essay in the London Journal Leigh Hunt thus 
introduced it : " Here followeth, gentle reader, the immortal record of 
Mrs. Battle and her whist ; a game which the author, as thou wilt see, 
wished that he could play forever; and, accordingly, in the deathless 
pages of his wit, forever will he play it." 

Mr. Percy Fitzgerald and Mr. Charles Kent see a resemblance 
between the character of Mrs. Battle and Lamb's grandmother, Mrs. 
Mary Field, but Mr. Barry Cornwall and Canon Ainger regard Mrs. 
Battle as purely the creature of the author's imagination. All the evi- 
dence of the essays, as well as Lamb's poem The Grandame, supports 
the latter view. 

53 24. his celebrated game of Ombre. The description occurs in the 
third canto of The Rape of the Lock. The terms used in the game — 
spadille, basto, matador, punto, etc. — indicate its Spanish origin. 

53 28. Mr. Bowles : the Rev. William Lisle Bowles, an English 
clergyman of antiquarian tastes. His Sonnets (1789) greatly influenced 
Coleridge, and his edition of Pope (1806) caused a controversy between 
Campbell and Byron. Southey married his sister Caroline. 

54 2. Spadille : the ace of spades in the games of ombre and quad- 
rille. See Pope's Rape of the Lock, Canto III. 



246 NOTES 

54 7. Sans Prendre Vole : a term at cards meaning ^* without taking 
the play that wins all the tricks." 

54 19. Machiavel, Niccolo (1469-1527): a Florentine author and 
statesman, who w^as employed in numerous diplomatic missions to the 
petty states of Italy, to France, and to Germany. In 1513 he was 
imprisoned and tortured on a charge of conspiring against the Medici. 
The reference in the text is to his Florejitine. Histoy. 

55 19. among those clear Vandykes: Sir Anthony Vandyke (1599- 
1641), a Flemish painter who spent many years in England. He was 
knighted by Charles I, to whom he was court painter. 

55 20. Paul Potter (1625-1654) : a Dutch painter of portraits and 
animals, . 

55 26. Pam in all his glory ! Pam was the familiar nickname of 
Henry John Temple Viscount Palmerston (i 784-1 865). At this time 
he was Secretary of War, a Tory, a follower of Pitt, and advocate of 
Catholic emancipation. In 1855 he became prime minister. 

56 3-4. the arrantest Ephesian journeyman. See Acts of the Apostles 
xix. 24-41. 

56 5. oux ancestors* money. Cf. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Book I, 
Chap. V, p. 35, MacMechan ed. : " A simple invention it was in the old- 
world grazier, — sick of lugging his slow ox about the country till he got 
it bartered for com or oil, — to take a piece of leather, and thereon 
scratch or stamp the mere figure of an ox {or ^ecus) ; put it in his pocket, 
and call it Pecunia, money." 

56 11. old Walter Plumer. See notes on The Soiith-Sea House, p. 324. 

59 12. Bridget Elia : Mary Lamb, sister of the author. 

59 34. Bridget and I should be ever playing : compare w^ith the thought 
in this last paragraph the art doctrine of arrested life in Keats's Ode 
on a Grecian Urn. 

Review Questions. 1. The characterization of Mrs. Battle by means 
of the game : {a) her strenuous personality; {b) her looks and bearing; 
(<:) her literary tastes ; (^/) her aggressive, argumentative tone. 2. The 
philosophy of the game of whist with relation to human nature. 3. Com- 
parison of whist with other games ; compare Poe's argument for the 
superiority of whist over chess in his Murders itt the Rue Morgue. 

4. Explain the references to painting, politics, Hterature, and the Bible. 

5. Find an example of Lamb's religious tolerance. 6. Examine the 
structure of the essay, especially the parts where the author addresses 
Mrs. Battle. 



NOTES 247 



VIII. VALENTINE'S DAY 

The Indicator, February 14, 1821 

This hitherto untraced essay of Elia, the source of which is now for 
the first time pointed out, appeared originally in No. 7 1 of Leigh Hunt's 
Indicator, where it may be found at pp. 150-152 of the second volume, 
signed, according to Lamb's not infrequent custom, with four asterisks. 
William Hone, in his Every Day Book, under date 14th of February, 
transcribed the whole paper with this prefix : " Attend we upon Elia. 
Hark, how triumphantly that noble herald of the College of Kindness 
proclaims the day ! " (Kent). 

60 1. old Bishop Valentine: a Christian martyr of the reign of the 
Emperor Claudius (about 270 a.d). The' custom of sending love mis- 
sives on the day of his festival, February 14, originated in connection 
with the heathen worship of Juno at that time. Its association with 
the saint is wholly accidental. 

60 2. Arch-flamen of Hymen : chief priest of the Greek and Roman 
god of marriage. 

60 9-10. Jerome, Ambrose, Austin, or St. Augustine : fathers of the 
Latin church in the 4th century A.D. 

60 9-11. Cyril, Origen: early fathers of the Greek church. 

60 11-12. Bull, Parker, Whitgift : prelates of the English church, men- 
tioned because of the ecclesiastical tyranny of a purely personal nature 
which they exercised. 

60 1 4. " Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings " : Paradise Lost, I, 768. 
61 12-13. " gives a very echo to the throne where hope is seated " : a 

paraphrase from Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II, iv. 

61 17-18. the raven himself was hoarse : Macbeth, I, v, 39. 

61 23. " having been will always be " : a free quotation from Words- 
worth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality, st. x, 11. 14-15- 

62 5. E. B. : Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848), a book illustrator 
and portrait painter. He was a cousin of the novelist Madame D'Arblay 
(Miss Burney). He illustrated the novels of Richardson and Smollett, 
also the Arabian Nights and various periodicals. 

62 25. Pyramus and Thisbe : this famous story of the lovers of Baby- 
lon is told in Ovid's Meta77iorphoses, IV, 55-166. See also Gayley's 
Classic Myths, § 78, and Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. It is the 
subject of burlesque in the subplot of Midsummer Nighfs Dream. 

62 25. Dido: the story of the unhappy queen of Carthage is found 
in Ovid's Metamorphoses, XIV, 2, and in Virgil's ^neid. Books I, II, 



248 NOTES 

and III. It was taken as the subject of plays by Gager, Rightwise, and 
Marlowe. 

62 26. Hero and Leander. See Musaeus's De Amore Herois et Leandri 
and Ovid's Heroides, XVIII, XIX. The story is treated in our literature 
in Marlowe's Hero and Leander and in Keats's On a Pictin-e of Leander. 

6226. swans more than sang in Cayster: the Cayster, or Little Mean- 
der, is a swift river of Asia Minor, and according to the poets was much 
frequented by swans. See Ovid's Metamorphoses^ II, 253 ; Martial's 
Epigrams, I, 54 ; Homer's Lliad, II, 461 ; and Virgil's Georgics, V, 384. 

62 28. Iris dipt the woof : the reference is to the variety of colors used 
by the artist, Iris being the goddess of the rainbow in Greek mythology. 

63 11. "Good-morrow to my Valentine": Lamb had in mind the 
mad-song of Ophelia in Hamlet, IV, v : 

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, 

All in the morning betime, 
And I a maid at your window, 

To be your Valentine. 

Review Questions. 1. What is the secret of the humor in the second 
paragraph ? 2. By what devices does the author give dignity to the sub- 
ject ? 3. What is the effect of the classical allusions ? Explain each. 

4. What do the quotations contribute to the tone of the essay ? 

5. Note easy transition to the fourth paragraph which is a short story. 

6. Is this ending a violation of unity in the structure of the essay? 

7. Rhetorical classification of " the world meets nobody half way," and 
" Iris dipt the woof," Find other figures. 8. What do you learn here 
of Lamb's gifts or limitations as a stoiy-teller ? 

IX. A QUAKERS' MEETING 
London Magazine, April, 182 1 

Both Leigh Hunt and Thomas Hood were impressed with Lamb's 
Quakerlike demeanor and plainness of dress. In the summer of 1822 
Lamb met Bernard Barton, a Quaker poet, who held a clerkship in a 
London bank. This meeting resulted in a delightful correspondence 
which extended from 1822 to 1828. Lamb once said to his friend, "I 
hope I am half a Quaker myself," and Ainger has especially noted 
Lamb's strong native sympathy for Quaker customs. 

63 16. *' Still-born Silence ! " etc. : a quotation from Richard Flecknoe's 
dramatic pastoral. Lovers Dominion (1634). It is one of the selections 
in Lamb's Specimens. 



NOTES 249 

64 10. nor pour wax into the little cells of thy ears : a reference to 
the story of Ulysses, who stopped up the ears of the crew with wax 
that they might not hear the song of the Sirens. 

64 18-19. " Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud " : Paradise Lost, X, 
699. 

64 33-34. The Carthusian is bound, etc : a monastic order founded by 
St. Bruno, who retired in 1086 with six companions to the solitude of La 
Chartreuse near Grenoble. They wore rude clothing, lived on coarse 
bread and vegetables, and maintained the rule of unbroken silence, 
night watching, and frequent prayer. 

65 9. Master Zimmermann. See note p. 335. 

65 19. " sands, ignoble things," etc. : from Francis Beaumont's Lines 
on the Tombs in Westminster Abbey. Cf. Addison's Thoughts in West- 
minster Abbey, and Irving's description of the Abbey in The Sketch 
Book. 

65 26. ** How reverend is the view," etc. : a free quotation from C5on- 
greve's Mozcrning Bride, II, i. 

6627. James Naylor (1618-1660) : a Puritan fanatic and Quaker 
of Yorkshire. Under the delusion that he was the reincarnation of 
Christ, he entered Bristol, October, 1655, on horseback, naked, in 
imitation of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. After being convicted of 
blasphemy by Parliament and tortured, he recanted. 

67 6. John Woolman (1720-1772) : an illiterate tailor of New Jersey. 
Lamb refers to the Journal of the Life, Gospel ajzd Labours of this 
humble Quaker, of whom Crabb Robinson said, " His religion is love ; 
his w^hole existence, and all his passions were love." 

68 14-15. the Loves fled the face of Dis : refers to the rape of Proser- 
pine by Pluto in the Vale of Enna. 

6821. caverns of Trophonius : a famous oracle in a cave in Bceotia, 
from which those who went to consult the god always returned dejected. 
Hence arose the proverb applied to a melancholy person, " He has 
been consulting the oracle of Trophonius." 

68 30-31. *' forty feeding like one " : from Wordsworth's little extem- 
pore poem The Cock- is crowing, etc., a favorite with Joanna Baillie. - 

693-4. the Shining Ones. See Pilgrim'' s Progress, Part I. 

Review Questions. 1. What evidence does this essay give of careful 
preparation of material ? 2. Note finished elaboration of the style. 
Is it painstaking ? suggestive ? bookish ? 3. What appealed to Lamb 
in the Quaker character ? 4. Was he intellectually in sympathy with 
them ? 5. Find echoes from literature sacred and profane. 



250 NOTES 



X. MY RELATIONS 
London Magazine, June, 1821 

69 16. I had an aunt. This was a sister of Lamb's father, who lived 
in her brother's home and contributed something to the family income. 
She died in February, 1797. Lamb wrote a poem in her honor. 

69 23. Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471): a German mystic and ascetic, 
the reputed author of De Imitatione Christi. 

69 24-25. matins and complines : canonical hours for divine service in 
the Roman Catholic Church, the latter being observed at midnight and 
the former shortly after. 

70 18. Brother, or sister, I never had any : a literary fiction intended 
to mislead, for Lamb is immediately to describe his brother and sister 
as cousins. 

70 19. Elizabeth. Two daughters of John and Elizabeth Lamb were 
christened by that name, both dying in infancy. 

7024. James and Bridget Elia: John and Mary Lamb, brother and 
sister of the author. John, who was Charles's senior by twelve years, 
held a clerkship in the South-Sea House, where he occupied bachelor 
chambers. Mary kept house for Charles. 

70 34. the pen of Yorick : Yorick is the pen name of Laurence Sterne in 
his Senti7ne7ital Journey . It is the name of the eccentric parson in Tristram 
Shandy who claims descent from Shakespeare's Yorick ! See Hamlet, V. 

71 7. the phlegm of my cousin's doctrine, etc. In early times the four 
principal types of temperament, the sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and 
melancholic, were supposed to depend on the preponderance of various 
humors in the system. 

71 24-25. that piece of tender pastoral Domenichino : a painting by the 
Italian artist Domenico Zampieri (1581-1641). Among his works are 
" Diana and her Nymphs," " Adam and Eve," " St. Jerome," " The 
Communion of St. Jerome," and " The Martyrdom of St. Agnes." 

71 31. Charles of Sweden : the celebrated soldier king, Charles XII 
(1682-1718). 

72 4. the Cham of Tartary : a powerful Eastern prince frequently re- 
ferred to by the Elizabethan dramatists as the type of haughty tyranny. 

72 15. John Murray (1778-1843): a well-known London publisher, 
founder of the Quarterly Review. 

73 4. Chanticleer : the name of the cock in the old beast epics and 
fablieaux, e.g. Chaucer's Nun^s Priesfs Tale, Roman du Renard, and 
Reinecke Fiichs. 



NOTES 251 

73 6. Eton: one of the most famous schools in England, situated 
on the Thames twenty-two miles west of London. It was founded by 
Henry VI in 1440. 

73 18. Claude Lorrain (i 600-1 682) : a French landscape painter. 
See Van Dyke's History of Painting, pp.. 136, 137. 

• 7319. Hobbima (1638 ?-i709) : a Dutch landscape painter. See 
Van Dyke's History of Paintittg, p. 216. 

73 20. Christie, Alexander (1807-1860) : a Scottish painter who had 
a studio in London. 

7320. Phillips, Thomas (i 770-1845): an English portrait painter, 
R.A. 1808; professor of painting, R.A. 1824-1832. 

73 26. Westward Ho ! a cry of the watermen on the Thames in old 
times indicating the direction of their boats. It is the title of a comedy 
by Webster and Dekker, and of a novel by Charles Kingsley. 

73 26. Pall Mall : a fashionable promenade in London leading from 
Trafalgar Square to the Green Park. See Hare's Lojidon, II, 44. 

74 6. "Cynthia of the miuute " : from Pope's Epistles, II, 1. 20. 
Cynthia is the moon goddess. 

74 7. Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520): the celebrated Italian painter. 
Among his chief paintings are " The Sistine Madonna," " The Trans- 
figuration," ''Marriage of the Virgin," "La Belle Jardiniere," "St. 
George and the Dragon," "St. Michael," "Apollo and Marsyas," "The 
Vision of Ezekiel," and the Vatican cartoons. 

7411. the Carracci: Ludovico (i 555-1619)' Agostino (i 558-1602), 
and Annibale (i 560-1609), three Italian painters of Bologna. 

7413. Lucca [Luca] Giordano (i 632-1 705) : a Neapolitan artist. 

74 14. Carlo Maratti (1625-1713): an Italian painter of Madonnas 
and other religious work, described as " meretricious." 

74 18. "set forth in pomp," etc.: Shakespeare's Richard II, V, i, 
78-80. 

7420. Hallowmas: All Hallows or All Saints' Day, November i. 

7513-14. Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) : an English abolitionist, 
author of a History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. 

76 8. " Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire " : from one 
of Lamb's early sonnets. 

Review Questions. 1. Study characterization of the aunt. 2. In the 
character of the brother note the blending of {a) the man of the world, 
(b) the sentimentalist, and {c) the dilettante ; also the mingled tone of 
irony and kindness. 3. What method does Lamb follow: the subjec- 
tive, objective, psychological, humorous, satiric, burlesque ? 4. Is he 



2 52 NOTES 

frank, or does he keep back his brother's less agreeable traits ? 5. In 
his references to art does Lamb impress you as an amateur or a con- 
noisseur? 6. What is the author's position in regard to cruelty to 
animals ? 7. Find examples of appeal to sense of sight, of hearing, of 
smell, of taste. 8. This essay may profitably be made the basis of a 
study of Italian art in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 



XI. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 
London Magazine^ July, 1 821 

769. Bridget Ella: Mary Lamb, who was ten years older than 
Charles. Mr. Ernest Rhys says, " It is to his sister Mary that Lamb 
devotes in ' Elia ' his most loving grace of description ; to his sister, 
who as Bridget Elia, lives in our hearts and minds forever." 

76 15. the rash king's offspring. Forthestoryof Jephthah'sdaughtersee 
Judges xi. 30-40. See also Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women, 11. 197-248. 

76 16. " with a difference " : an heraldic term. See Hamlet, IV, v, 182. 
7624. Burton. See note on p. 334. 

77 9. the Religio Medici. See note on p. 336. 

77 14. Margaret Newcastle. See note, pp. 334-335. 

78 12-13. spacious closet of good old English reading : the library was 
that of Samuel Salt. See The Old Benchers. 

78 24-25. She is excellent to be at play with. Charles and Mary usu- 
ally played piquet together. 

7929. "But thou, that didst appear so fair": from Wordsworth's 
Ya7'row Visited. 

81 6. B. F. : Barron Field (1786-1846), a lawyer who accompanied 
the Lambs on this visit. He is referred to as " a very dear friend " in 
The Old arid the New Schoolmaster, and the Distant Correspondents is 
addressed to him. He usually attended the Wednesday parties. He 
became Judge of the Supreme Court in Sydney, New South Wales, and 
Chief Justice at Gibraltar. 

Review Questions. L Examine the rhetorical effects in the passage 
beginning " Still the air breathed balmy." Mr, Ainger calls attention 
to " the almost unique beauty of this prose idyll." 2. Why are there 
fewer literary allusions in this essay than in previous ones ? 3. Can 
you find the secret of the effects produced in this character sketch of 
Mary Lamb mentioned by Mr. Rhys ? 4. Find touches of the humorous 
and pathetic. 5. What were the peculiar relations of the author and 
his sister ? 6. Find examples of graceful transition. 



NOTES 253 



XIL IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 

London Magazine^ August, 1821 

This essay was originally entitled somewhat oddly and clumsily, Jews, 
Quakers, Scotchmen and other Imperfect Sympathies. 

82 5. author of the Religio Medici : Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), 
one of the writers who most influenced Lamb. See Introduction, p. xxix. 
The passage quoted occurs in Part II, sec. i. 

82 6-7. notional and conjectural essences : the beings of fancy and con- 
jecture. Speculating about the world of spirits, in Religio Medici, Part 
I, sec. xxxiii, Browne says, " I could easily believe, that not only whole 
countries, but particular persons, have their tutelary and guardian 
angels." 

82 14. "Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky [pole]": quoted 
imperfectly from Milton's invocation of Urania in Paradise Lost, VII, 23. 

83 (footnote). Heywood, Thomas: the seventeenth-century dramatist. 

83 8. anti-Caledonian. Caledonia was the old poetic name of Scot- 
land. 

84 15-16. His Minerva is bom in panoply. In Greek mythology, Pallas 
Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sprang full-armed from the brain of 
Zeus, 

84 25. true touch. Here " touch " means tried metal of proved 
quality. Cf. Coriolanus, IV, i, "my friends of noble touch." The 
word is also used of (i) a stone to test the quality of metals, and (2) the 
trial itself. 

85 12. John Buncle. See note on p. 334. 

85 19. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) ; a great Italian painter, archi- 
tect, sculptor, musician, and scientist. The " print of a graceful female " 
was from his famous Vierge atix Rockers, or " Virgin of the Rocks," of 
which there are replicas in the Louvre at Paris and in the National 
Gallery in London. 

86 1. Burns, Robert (i 759-1 796) : the celebrated lyric poet of Scot- 
land. 

86 18. Thomson, James (i 700-1 748). The author of The Seasons and 
The Castle of Indolence, though a Scotchman, does not use the Scotch 
dialect in his poems. 

8619. Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771): a Scotch novelist bom near 
Dumbarton, and author of Roderick Random and Humphrey Clinker, 
which is told in a series of letters, and is by many critics considered his 
best. He also wrote a History of England, an independent work, 



254 NOTES 

which has been frequently printed as a continuation of Hume's History, 
which closes at the Revolution. 

86 20. Rory and his companion : Roderick Random and his school- 
fellow, the barber, Hugh Strap, who are outrageously gulled on their 
arrival in London. 

86 26. Stonehenge : the remnant of a prehistoric Celtic monument of 
a religious nature, which stands in Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire. Seven- 
teen great stones, connected in part by slabs resting on their tops, 
inclose an ellipse, in the middle of which is a slab called the altar. 
See Rhys's Celtic Heatkendof?i, pp. 194, 195. 

87 1. They date beyond the pyramids. Lamb had in mind the pyra- 
mids of Gizeh, the northernmost surviving group of a range of about 
seventy pyramids extending from Aba Roash south to Meidoun. The 
group dates from about 4000 B.C. De Quincey makes similar use of the 
pyramids to connote great age in his Confessio7is and Daughter of 
Lebanon. 

87 5. the story of Hugh of Lincoln. The legend of the torture and 
murder of this little Christian boy by the Jews of Lincoln in 1255 is 
told by Matthew Paris, and is the subject of several old ballads in 
Percy's Keliques, the Golden Txe2iS\xxy Ballad Book, and Child's Ballads. 
See also Chaucer's Prioresses Tale. 

S7 27. B : John Braham (1774-1856): the most popular tenor 

singer of his day in London ; author of T/ie Death of Nelson and other 
songs. " That glorious singer," wrote Lamb to Manning on January 2, 
1810, "Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. He 
was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman and the angel, yet all 
these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you could not tell which 
preponderated ; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead " 
{Letters of Charles Lamb, p. 241). 

87 32. the Shibboleth : a secret password. For its origin see Judges 
xii. 1-6. 

884. Kemble, John Philip (1757-1823): the great tragic actor, who 
succeeded Garrick as the foremost interpreter of Shakespeare's heroes. 
" He was a stately actor, with a somewhat stilted and declamatory 
style." The still more celebrated Sarah Siddons was his sister, and 
Charles Kemble, the father of Fanny Kemble, his brother, who was a 
frequent guest at Lamb's parties. 

88 12. Jael. She slew Sisera in her tent by smiting a nail into his 
temples. See Judges iv. 18-22. 

8817. Fuller, Thomas (1608-1661): the, author of two well-known 
books, The Worthies of Engla7id and The Holy and the Profane State. 



I 



NOTES 255 

His style, which greatly influenced Lamb, is full of solemn, fantastic 
quips and quaint conceits. 

88 2] . Quaker ways. " Do * Friends ' allow puns," — wrote Lamb to 
his Quaker friend, Bernard Barton, — " verbal equivocations ? They are 
unjustly accused of it, and I did my best in the Imperfect Sympathies \.o 
vindicate them." 

88 27. Desdemona : the young and beautiful heroine of Shakespeare's 
tragedy of Othello. " To live with him " is a phrase in I, iii, 249. 

88 32-33. the salads which Eve dressed for the angel. See Paradise 
Lost, V, 315-450- 

8833. Evelyn, John, D.C.L. (1620-1706): an English author, who 
wrote much on the Arundel marbles, Greenwich Hospital, gardening, 
numismatics, etc. He was a Royalist during the Civil War and became 
secretary of the Royal Society. Lamb's reference is to a passage in his 
Complete Gardener. 

88 34. ** To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse " : a free paraphrase 
from Paradise Regained, II, 278. 

90 11. Penn, Wilham (1644-1718) : the founder of Pennsylvania, and 
author of No Cross No Crown, a book which Lamb liked immensely, pro- 
nouncing it " a most capital book, good thoughts in good language." 

90 15. I was travelling in a stage-coach, etc. This anecdote called 
forth a remonstrance from Barton's sister, to whom Lamb replied in a 
letter of March 11, 1823, explaining that the adventure had not hap- 
pened to him but had been related to him by the eminent surgeon. Sir 
Anthony Carlyle, who was an eyewitness of the incident. 

90 34. The steps went up. Coaches and private carriages were for- 
merly provided with folding steps. 

Review Questions. 1. Note the perfect construction of this essay. 

2. Study the satire and humor in the paragraph on the Scotch. 

3. Explain and comment on the figure employed in " His Minerva is 
born in panoply." 4. Is there any animosity in Lamb's criticism of 
Scotch character? 5. Note with what critical insight and delicacy 
Lamb suggests Smollett's superiority to Hume. 6. What accounts for 
the author's admiration for Burns and Thomson ? 7. Note the inge- 
nuity and subtle suggestiveness of the close of the paragraph on Jews. 
8. Analyze effects, plan, climax, character sketching, etc., in the short 
story at the close of the essay. 



256 NOTES 

XIII. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 
London Magazine, September, 182 1 

" The essay on The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple is one of the 
most varied and beautiful pieces of prose that English literature can 
boast. Eminently, moreover, does it show us Lamb as the product of 
two different ages, — the child of the Renaissance of the sixteenth cen- 
tury and of that of the nineteenth. It is as if both Spenser and Words- 
worth had laid hands of blessing upon his head" (Ainger). 

91 14. the Temple : in the Middle Ages a lodge of the Knights Tem- 
plars of the Holy Sepulcher, which was a military and religious order. 
A later building of the order, dating from 11 84, is the Temple in the 
Strand. The Templars were suppressed in the reign of Edward II, and 
the house, after passing through various hands, reverted to the crown. 
In 1338 it went to the Knights Hospitalers of St. John, who leased it 
to students of the common law. On the same site now stand the two 
Inns of Court, called the Inner and Middle Temples, owned by a legal 
society which grants admission to the bar. The Outer Temple was 
converted into the Exeter Buildings. 

91 21. "There when they came," etc. : ixoxti.^^^xvs.^x'^ Prothalamium^. 
St. viii. 

92 5. "Of building strong," etc. : an improvised line referring to the 
" Paper Buildings " facing King's Bench Walk in the Temple. 

92 11. Twickenham Naiades. Twickenham, a town where Pope lived 
and had a grotto, was higher up the river above the " trade-polluted 
waters," and therefore where, to the imagination, river nymphs would 
prefer to dwell. 

92 13. that fine Elizabethan hall : the hall of the Middle Temple. 

92 25. *' Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand," etc. : from Shake- 
speare's Sonnet, civ. 

93 4. the horologe of the first world. The ancient horologe, or sun dial, 
was an instrument for showing the time of day from the shadow of a 
style or gnomon, which was parallel with the earth's axis, on a graduated 
arc or surface called the dial plate. There were also astral and lunar 
dials. Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, in his Old Country House, quotes from 
this essay and speaks of the dial as " the natural clock by which to do 
the beautiful work of idleness. " 

93 8-9. " carved it out quaintly in the sun." See j Henry VI, II, v, 24. 

93 12. Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678): joint secretary with Milton 

under Cromwell, and the last of the lyric poets of the romantic age. 



NOTES 257 

For the influence of his lovely garden poems on Lamb, see Ainger's 
Life, p. 108. 

93 17. "What wonderous life is this I lead!" from Marvell's The 
Garden. The entire poem is number 1 1 1 in the Golden Treasury of 
English Lyrics. 

94 20. Lincoln's Inn: one of the Inns of Court, occupied by legal 
societies which provide instruction and examinations for candidates to 
the bar. See Hare's London, Vol. I, p. 59. 

95 12. The old benchers : the legal term applied to the senior and 
governing members of the Inns of Court. 

95 17. The roguish eye of J 11. Jekyll, the famous wit among the 

benchers, w^as the master in chancery ; called to the bench in 1805, died 
in 1837. 

95 19. Thomas Coventry: called to the bench in 1766, died in 1797. 

95 26. an Elisha bear. See 2 Kings ii. 23, 24. 

96 2. Samuel Salt. See note on p. 329. 

96 14. his man Lovel : the author's father, John Lamb, Sr., who 
died 1797. The name Lovel occurs in Murphy's The Citizen (1757), 
Bayley's The Mistletoe Bough, Clara Reeve's Old English Baron (1777), 
and Townley's High Life Below Stairs (1759), from any one of which 
Lamb may have taken it. There is also a Lovell mentioned in News- 
papers Thirty fve Years Ago, whose name may have suggested the 
pseudonym of his father. 

96 27. the unfortunate Miss Blandy : the principal in a celebrated trial 
for murder in 1752. Her father, a Henley attorney, refused to allow 
her to receive the attentions of Captain Cranstoun, an adventurer. 
Mr. Blandy died from the effects of a powder given him by his daughter, 
who claimed that it was a love philter to change his feelings toward her 
lover. She was convicted and executed at Oxford in April, 1752. See 
Leslie's Our River. 

97 15-16. Not so, thought Susan P : Susannah Pierson, sister of the 

bencher mentioned below. As a mark of his regard Salt bequeathed 
her the works of Pope, Swift, Shakespeare, Addison, and Steele. 

98 9-10. the mad Elwes breed : John Elwes (1714-1789), anoted miser, 
the son of a wealthy English brewer. He had a morbid disinclination 
to spend money upon himself, but was extravagant in gaming and 
speculation. 

98 28. his "flapper": in Swift's Voyage to Lap uta, 2i i^imWy officer, 
whose business it was " gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of 
him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the 
speaker addresseth himself." 



258 NOTES 

99 13. a face as gay as Garrick's : David Garrick (1717-1779), the 
famous English actor and manager of Drury Lane Theater, where he 
brought out twenty-four of Shakespeare's plays, besides many modem 
comedies. Dr. Johnson said that " his death eclipsed the gaiety of 
nations." A portrait of John Lamb in Procter's Memoir of Charles 
Lamb shows some resemblance to Garrick. 

93 15-16. next to Swift and Prior. For a discussion of Swift's verse 
see Gosse's Literature of the Eighteenth Century, pp. 152-153; and for 
that of Prior, Austin Dobson's essay in Ward's English Poets, Vol. Ill, 
pp. 18, 19. 

99 16. moulded heads. Canon Ainger mentions a medallion portrait 
of Salt done by John Lamb in plaster of Paris, and now in the posses- 
sion of Mrs. Arthur Tween, a daughter of Randall Norris. 

99 27. " a remnant [semblance] most forlorn of what he was " : a free 
quotation from Lamb's own lines "wTitten on the day of my aunt's 
funeral" (1797). 

99 29. He was greatest ... in Bayes : a coxcomb in Buckingham's 
farce, The Rehersal, intended as a caricature of the poet laureate, 
Dryden. The character was originally called Bilboa in ridicule of 
Sir Robert Howard, but was changed when Howard became a friend of 
the author. Dryden in turn satirized Buckingham as Zimri in Absalom 
and Achitophel. 

100 9. Peter Pierson : called to the bench in iSoo and died in 1808. 
Though friends at the bar, he and Salt were not contemporaries on the 
bench. 

100 17-18. resembling that of our great philanthropist. Probably John 
Howard is meant. 

100 20. Daines Barrington (1722-1800) : the son of Viscount Barring- 
ton. He was called to the bench in 1777. He was an enthusiastic 
naturalist and antiquarian, and wrote The Naturalist's Caletidar and 
Observations on the Statzites. 

IOO29, Barton, Thomas: called to the bench in 1775, died 1791. 

100 34. Read, John: called to the bench in 1792, died 1794. 

101 1. Twopeny, Richard (i 728-1809). He was a stockbroker to the 
Bank of England, and occupied bachelor chambers in the Temple, but 
was never a bencher, as Lamb supposed. 

101 2. Wharry, John: called to the bench in 1801, died in 1810. 
101 16. Jackson, Richard. On account of his learning and memory 

he was given the sobriquet of the Omniscient. See Boswell's Life of 
fohnson, April, 1776. He went on the bench in 1770, became a member 
of Parliament and a minister of the crown in 1782. He died in 1787. 



NOTES 259 

101 19. Friar Bacon: Roger Bacon (12 14?-: 294), a learned English 
philosopher and scientist, author of Opus Majus (1265), ^ scientific 
treatise written on request of Pope Clement IV. In Greene's play 
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay he is a great magician possessing super- 
natural knowledge and power. See Schneider's Roger Bacon (1873). 

101 29. Mingay with the iron hand : James Mingay, an eminent king's 
counsel, noted for his " oratory of infinite wit and most excellent fancy." 
He went on the bench in 1 785 and died in 181 2. He was a rival of Erskine. 

102 3. Michael Angelo's Moses : a gigantic and imposing statue in the 
church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome, His right hand upholds 
the tables of the law and clutches the long beard, and the hair is 
arranged in such a way as to give a suggestion of horns. 

102 4. Baron Maseres (1731-1824) filled for fifty years the post of 
Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. He continued throughout life to 
wear the costume of the reign in which he was bom. 

102 13. I saw Gods, as ** old men," etc. See i Samuel xxviii. 13, 14. 
Cf. Lamb's mention of the picture of the Witch of Endor in Witches 
and Other Night-Fears. 

102 28. R. N. : Randall Norris (1751-1827), for many years librarian 
and subtreasurer of the Inner Temple, where he resided for over fifty 
years. Lamb wrote of him, " He was my friend and my father's friend 
all the life I can remember. Old as I am waxing, in his eyes I was 
still the child he first knew me. To the last he called me Charley. I 
have none to call me Charley now." 

103 14. Urban : the pseudonym of the editor of the Gentleman' s 
Magazine (founded 1731). 

103 20-21. "ye yourselves are old " : Lear, II, vii, 194. 

103 22. future Hookers and Seldens. Richard Hooker (i 553-1600), 
the author of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, was a Master of the 
Temple, and John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist, antiquary, and orien- 
talist, had quarters in the Inner Temple 

Review Questions. 1. What were Lamb's special gifts for writing 
biographical sketches .-' 2. In which of the benchers does the author 
show peculiar interest .? 3. Note the tender humor of his portraiture 
of his father, and contrast with that of his brother John. 4. Lamb has 
been called " the last of the Elizabethans " ; find grounds for this 
statement in this essay. 5. Compare characterization of Coventry with 
Irving's Wooter van Twiller. 6. Examine Lamb's use of Italianized, 
frescoes, quadrate, coeval, spinous, cue, windfall, moidore, hunks, female, 
quips, and younkers. What can be said of the author's vocabulary 1 



26o NOTES 

XIV. WITCHES AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS 

London Magazine, October, 1821 

This essay was the unfortunate cause of the controversy between 
Lamb and his old friend Southey. In an article entitled Progress of 
Infidelity, attacking Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt in the Quarterly Review 
for July, 1823, Southey spoke of unbelievers not always being honest 
enough to express their real feelings, and charged them with the 
inability to divest themselves of fear even when they had renounced 
hope. " There is a remarkable proof of this in Ella's Essays," he wrote, 
" a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling to be as delight- 
ful as it is original. In that upon Witches and Other Night-Fears he 
says, ' It is not book or picture, or the stories of foolish servants which 
create these terrors in children.' " Southey then quoted the passage 
about little Thornton Hunt, and used it as a text for criticising severely 
the irreligious training of Leigh Hunt's children. Talfourd explains 
that Southey intended by this reference to increase the sale of Lamb's 
book. Lamb felt this slur so deeply that he wrote to Barton on 
July 10, " Southey has attacked Elia on the score of infidelity. . . . He 
might have spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless 
flights, that meant no harm to religion." In the Londojt for October 
Lamb published a long open letter to Southey in which he expostulated 
with him for doing him an unfriendly office, and defended himself and 
Hunt vigorously. Southey read the article with surprise and grief. 
Lamb soon recovered from his resentment, apologized to his friend, 
received a visit from him, and reestablished their friendship. 

104 11. maidens pined away. A common charge against witches was 
that of causing their victims to waste away by making waxen images 
of them and applying tortures to these. See Reginald Scot's Discoverie 
of Witchcraft (1584, recently edited by Dr. Nicholson), XII, 16; also 
Bullen's edition of Middleton's Witch, a play with which Lamb was 
familiar. This superstition is the motive of Rossetti's ballad Sister 
Helen. 

104 23. symbolized by a goat. See Matthew xxv. 33. 

105 9. Prospero : a wise and good magician in The Tempest. See 
I, ii, for the reference. 

105 15. Guyon, Sir : the knight of temperance in Spenser's Faerie 
Qneene. See the account of the siege of the House of Temperance, 
Book II, Canto xi. 

105 29. Witch raising up Samuel. See i Samuel xxviii. 



NOTES 201 

106 14. Saint George : the patron saint of England, the same as the 
Red Cross Knight in Book I of the Faerie Queene. The exploit 
referred to was slaying the monster Error, See Book I, Canto i, 20-26. 

108 8. " Headless bear, blackman, or ape " : from Burton's Anatomy 
of Melaficholy, p. iii. 

108 12. Dear little T. H. : Leigh Hunt's oldest son, Thornton. 

108 17-18. "thick-coming fancies " : from Macbeth, V, iii, 38. 

108 22-23. Gorgons : Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale, three sisters with 
wings, brazen claws, enormous teeth, scaly bodies, and hair entwined 
with serpents. \yhoever looked upon them was turned to stone. 
Hydras : the mythological hydra slain by Hercules was a many-headed 
water serpent which inhabited the marshes of Lema in Argolis. Chi- 
maeras : the chimera of mythology was a strange, fire-breathing mon- 
ster of Lycia, killed by Bellerophon. the Harpies : Celasno, Aello, 
and Ocypete, the daughters of Neptune and Terra. They are repre- 
sented as disgusting winged monsters, of fierce aspect, with the bodies 
of vultures, the heads of maidens, and hands armed with claws. They 
were ministers of the vengeance of the gods. 

108 28. " Names, whose sense we see not," etc. : from Spenser's Epi- 
thalamium, 11. 343, 344. 

109 6. "Like one that on a lonesome road," etc.: from Coleridge's 
Ancient Mariner, \\. ^'\6-^^\. 

110 5. Helvellyn: the second peak in height (31 18 feet) in the lake 
district in Cumberland. 

110 10. " Where Alph, the sacred river, runs [ran]," etc. : from Cole- 
ridge's Kubla Khan, 1. 3. 

110 12. Barry Cornwall. See note o*n p. 320. 

110 24. Ino Leucothea: the wife of Athamas, king of Thebes. To 
escape from her mad husband she threw herself into the sea and was 
changed into a sea goddess. 

Review Questions. 1. Examine the fine topic sentence in paragraph 2. 
2. Show the perfect keeping between Lamb's subject and his treatment 
of it. How does he get his weird effects? 3. Find an echo of the 
leading thought in Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality. 
4. Compare with Lamb's " night fancies " De Quincey's architectural 
dreams. See my edition of the Confessions, pp. 129-135. 5. Is there 
evidence of the influence of the style of the Bible ? of Milton ? 



262 NOTES 



XV. GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

London Magazine, November, 1821 

In Lamb's reply to Southey in the London for October, 1823, 
regarding the laureate's attack on the Essays of Elia, he said : " Per- 
haps the paper on Saying Graces was the obnoxious feature. I have 
endeavored there to rescue a voluntary duty — good in place, but never, 
as I remember, literally commanded — from the charge of an undecent 
formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but 
want of grace ; not against ceremony, but the carelessness and sloven- 
liness so often observed in the performance of it." 

111 29. the Fa6rie Queene : the great allegorical and romantic poem 
by Edmund Spenser (1552 ?-i 599). 

112 5-6. Utopian : a word derived from Sir Thomas More's political 
romance Utopia, i.e. Nowhere (1516), which gives an account of an 
imaginary island, the seat of an ideal commonwealth. It means 
therefore "impracticable," "visionary." 

112 5-6. Rabelaesian : an epithet derived from the name of Frangois 
Rabelais (1495 ?-i 553), whose books were noted for their buffoonery, 
riotous license, and their biting satire on the religious corruptions of 
the time. 

113 26. still small voice. See i Kings xix. 12. 

113 29. Jeshurun waxed fat. See Deuteronomy xxxii. 1 5. 

113 31. Celaeno. See Virgil's ^neid, III, 245-257, and note p. 353. 

114 15. "A table richly spread in regal mode," etc. : from Paradise 
Regained, II, 340-34?- 

11428. Heliogabalus : a Roman emperor (204-222 a.d.) notorious for 
his gluttony and debauchery. 

115 3. "As appetite is wont to dream, " etc. : from Paradise Regained, 
II, 264-278. 

11615. C : Coleridge. 

116 26. The author of the Rambler. Dr. Samuel Johnson published 
the Rambler, a periodical after the plan of the Spectator, in London, 
1750-1752. For a graphic account of Dr. Johnson's gormandizing, read 
Macaulay's Essay on Johnsoji. 

117 3. Dagon : the national god of the Philistines, half man and half 
fish. The word is derived from the Hebrew dag, a fish. See Judges 
xvi. 23, and i Samuel v. 

117 6. the Chartreuse: the leading Carthusian monastery near 
Grenoble. 



NOTES 263 

118 5. Lucian : a Greek satirist and humorist, called the Blas- 
phemer" on account of his attacks on the religious beliefs of his 
time. 

118 14-15. that equivocal wag, C. V. L. : Charles Valentine Le Grice. 
See note on p. 331. 

118 26. some one recalled a legend. The story is told by Leigh Hunt 
in his account of the Blue-Coat School. See note on p. 329. 

Review Questions. 1. Find examples of Lamb's appeal to the sense of 
taste for literary effects. Cf. Milton's and Keats's similar use. 2. Note 
the fine epigrammatic sentence in the eighth paragraph. 3. Study the 
author's use of the short sentence in the tenth paragraph. 4. Pick out 
the topic sentence in each paragraph and note position, 5. Analyze 
the humor of Coleridge's axiom about apple dumplings, and Le Grice's 
anteprandial witticism. 6. Explain the biblical and other literary allu- 
sions. 7. Explain the following : " those Virgilian fowl," orgasm, wind- 
fall, epicurism, culinary, tucker, and flamens. 



XVI. DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE 

London Magazine, January, 1822 

This paper was written by Lamb a short while after the death of his 
brother John. The bereavement brought home to him a depressing 
sense of his loneliness, for his sole surviving near relative was now his 
sister, whose sad affliction deprived him of her companionship for 
months at a time. In the delicate and pathetic confidence of this essay 
he reveals to us the genuine emotions of a heart deprived of the happi- 
ness of wedded life. As a protection from the curious, he, as is his 
custom, blends fact with fiction. 

119 6. who lived in a great house in Norfolk. This house was not 
really situated in Norfolk, but in Hertfordshire, as is afterwards stated 
correctly in the essay on Blakesmoor (Blakesware). 

119 10-11. the Children in the Wood. The ballad is given in Bishop 
Percy's Reliques, and in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 
It is the story of the little son and daughter of a Norfolk gentleman, 
who were left with a considerable fortune in the care of an uncle. He, 
in order to secure the property, hired two rufiians to murder the children. 
But one of them relented and killed his companion. The little ones 
were, however, left in the Wayland Wood, where they perished at night 
of cold and terror. In time the ruffian confessed, and the unnatural 



264 NOTES 

uncle died in prison. The tale is the subject of Thomas Taylor's play 
The Babes in the Wood. 

11926-27. which afterwards came to decay. Cussans says in his 
History of Hertfordshire that the Blakesware house was pulled down 
in 1822. The "other house" was Gilston, the principal seat of the 
Plumers, some miles distant. 

120 7. Psaltery : the version of the Psalms in the Book of Common 
Prayer. 

120 28-29. busts of the twelve Caesars. " I could tell you," wrote Lamb 
to Southey, " of an old house with a tapestry bed-room, the ' Judgment 
of Solomon ' composing one panel, and ' Actason spying Diana naked ' 
the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's prints, 
and the Roman Caesars in marble hung around " (Lamb's Letters^ XLV). 

121 24-25. their uncle, John L : John Lamb, the author's brother. 

122 25. the fair Alice W n. See note, p. 336. 

Review Questions. 1. Note the beautiful simplicity and tenderness of 
the style, which is admirably adapted to the tone of the essay. 2. How 
are the characters of the children suggested ? 3. Note how deli- 
cately the character of the mother is depicted by reflection in that of 
the imaginary Alice. 4. Is the characterization of Mrs. Field distinct ? 
5. Compare what is here said of John with that in the former essay, 
noticing differences in tone. 6. Note the classic notion of incarnation 
at the close of the essay. 7. What gives unity to the two long sen- 
tences beginning, '* Then I told how good," etc., and " Then in some- 
what a more heightened tone," etc. ? 8. Observe the undemote of 
pathos running throughout the essay. 9. Do you find any humor ? 



XVIL ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS 

London Magazine, February, 1822 

This was one of three essays originally published in the London under 
the general title of The Old Actors. In the volume of 1823 they were 
abridged and arranged under the title of On Some of the Old Actors, 
On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century, and On the Acting of 
Munden. 

123 25. Mr. Barrymore: Spranger Barry (17 19-1777), an Irish actor, 
the rival of Garrick. He excelled in tragedy. 

123 28. Mrs. Jordan: the stage name of Dorothy Bland (1762-18 16), 
an Irish actress, whom Genest declares never to have had a superior 



NOTES 265 

in comedy. She was especially admired in the role of Hypolita in 
Wycherly's Gentleman Dancing-Master. 

124 2-3. her Nells and Hoydens. Nell is the meek and obedient wife 
of Jobson in C. Coffey's play The Devil to Pay (1731); Hoyden is a 
romping, country girl in Vanbrugh's play The Relapse (1697), modern- 
ized by Sheridan in A Trip to Scarborough (1777). 

124 7. story of her love for Orsino. See Twelfth Night., II, iv, no. 

124 19. " Write loyal cantons of contemned love," etc. : Twelfth Night, 
I, V, 291. 

125 8. Bensley, Robert (1738-1817). He retired from the stage in 
1796. 

125 13-14. Hotspur's famous rant about glory. See i Henry IV, I, iii, 
200 seq. 

125 (footnote). Venice Preserved : a tragedy by Thomas Otway (165 1- 
1685), "the principal tragic poet of the English classical school." He 
fell in love with Mrs. Barry, who acted in his plays, and who proved his 
evil genius. He died in a baker's shop near a sponging house in which 
he was living in abject poverty. Pierre is a conspirator in Vejtice Pre- 
served. See II, iii, p. 318, Mermaid ed. 

12624-25. John Kemble. See note on p. 346. 

126 31. Lambert, John (1619-1683) : an English general distinguished 
on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and a member of Cromwell's 
Council of State. 

126 31-32. Lady Fairfax : the wife of the fifth Lord Fairfax, a Parlia- 
mentary general in the Civil War. 

128 23. Duchess of Malfy [Malfi] : a tragedy by John Webster 
(printed in 1623). See Mermaid ed. 

129 33. the hero of La Mancha : Don Quixote de la Mancha, a Span- 
ish country gentleman in Cervantes' romance of that name. 

130 15. to mate Hyperion : the son of Caelum and Tellus, the ancient 
god of the sun, overthrown by Apollo. Keats wrote a fragmentary epic 
on the theme. 

130 22. «' thus the whirligig of time," etc. : Twelfth Night, V, i, 385. 

130 26. Dodd, James William (i 740?-! 796) : an actor in Garrick's 
company who was very successful in the parts of Sir Andrew Ague- 
cheek and Abel Drugger. He died in the autumn of 1796 soon after 
retiring from his profession. 

132 3-6. so formally flat in Foppington, etc. Lord Foppington is an 
empty-headed coxcomb, intent only on dress and fashion, in Van Brugh's 
comedy The Relapse (1697), and in Sheridan's adaptation. Tattle, a 
character in Congreve's Love for Love (1695), " a mixture of lying, 



266 NOTES 

foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging, licentiousness, and ugliness, but a 
professed beau"; Backbite, Sir Benjamin, a conceited, censorious char- 
acter in Sheridan's comedy The School for Scandal (1777) ; Acres, Bob, 
a country gentleman in Sheridan's comedy The Rivals (1775), who tries 
to ape a man of fashion, and, though a coward, is a great blusterer; 
Fribble, a contemptible mollycoddle in Garrick's Miss in Her Teens 

(1753)- 

132 31. " put on the weeds of Dominic." The uniform of the Domin- 
ican friars was a white robe with a black cloak and pointed cap. 

133 3-4. Richard Suett: died 1S05. 

133 14. like Sir John, "with hallooing and singing of anthems " : said 
of Sir John Falstaff in 2 Henry IV, I, ii, 213. 

133 17. "commerce with the skies": a paraphrase of Milton's // 
Penseroso, 1. 39, " and looks commercing with the skies." 

134 3. Parsons: died 1795. 

134 7. Robin Good-Fellow : the son of King Oberon, but also the 
generic name for any domestic spirit, elve, imp, or fay with the power 
to turn himself into any shape so long as he did harm to none but 
knaves and queans. See Burton's Anatomy of Melaticholy, p. 47, and 
The Mad Pranks and Merty fests of Robin Goodfellow (1580), repub- 
lished by the Percy Society, 1841. 

134 9. Puck, or Hobgoblin, same as Robin Goodfellow : a gossamer- 
winged, dainty-limbed, fawn-faced, mischievous little urchin in Mid- 
summer Nighfs Dream. See also Drayton's Nytnphidia (•1627). 

13416. The "force of nature could no farther go": from Dryden's 
poem on Milton, " Three poets in three distant ages born," etc. 

135 1. Jack Bannister (1760-1836): a noted English comedian, the 
son of Charles Bannister, an actor and bass singer. The Children in 
the Wood IS, a comedy by Morton (18 15). 

135 9. He put us into Vesta's days. In the most primitive times 
Vesta was, according to some mythologists, the mother of the gods. 

135 23. In sock or buskin : in comedy or tragedy. The terms are 
derived from the costumes of comic and tragic actors in classical 
times. 

135 24. Palmer, John (i 747-1 798) : retired from the stage in 1798. 
He excelled in the role of Joseph Surface. 

135 31. Bobby in the Duke's Servant : a character in Townley's farce. 
High Life Below Stairs (1759). 

135 33. Captain Absolute : a character in Sheridan's The Rivals 
{177s), in love with Lydia Languish, to whom he is known only as 
Ensign Beverley. 



NOTES 267 

136 3. Dick Amlet : a gamester in Vanbrugh's comedy, The Con- 
federacy (1695). 

136 8-9. The lies of young Wilding. Jack Wilding is a young gentle- 
man from Oxford in S. Foote's farce, The Liar (1761), who fabricates 
the most ridiculous falsehoods, which he passes off for facts. 

136 9. Joseph Surface : a character in Sheridan's School for Scandal 
(1777), whose good is all on the surface, but who is in reality an artful, 
malicious, and sentimental knave. 

136 20. Ben Legend : in Congreve's Love for Love (1695) ' younger son 
of Sir Sampson Legend, a sailor and sea wit, with none of the tradi- 
tional generosity and frankness of the British tar. Dibdin says that 
Thomas Doggett was the best actor of the part. 

137 13-14. a Wapping sailor. Wapping is a quarter of London lying 
along the north bank of the Thames below the Tower. 

Review Questions. 1. The student should read Twelfth Night in 
order to understand this essay properly. 2. Examine with special 
care what Lamb says about Malvolio. It is a noble specimen of 
Shakespearean criticism. 3. Analyze also the characters and acting of 
Dodd, Suett, and Palmer, with reference to the parts taken. 4. Note 
how skillfully Lamb merges the personality of the actor in the character 
taken by him. 5. Give the main points made by Lamb in his criticism 
of the artificial comedy of the eighteenth century. 6. Read the criti- 
cisms on Congreve and Sheridan in any good history of English 
literature, and compare their comedy with Shakespeare's. 



XVIIL THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 
London Magazine, May, 1822 

A May-Day Efftision was originally attached as a subtitle to this 
paper. The essay shows with what a keenly observant eye Lamb 
walked the streets of London. Procter speaks of him as " looking no 
one in the face for more than a moment, yet contriving to see every- 
thing as he went on." 

The custom of employing boys to sw^eep chimneys was not abol- 
ished until 1840, after a long agitation by Parliament (see McCarthy's 
History of England in the Ni^ieteenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 267-273). 
The adult master sweepers hired little boys to do the climbing. The 
system led to much abuse and even criminal cruelty. The limbs of 
the sweepers were severely abrased by the friction necessary to force 



268 NOTES 

their way up the rough masonry. Sometimes the boys would stick 
fast in the narrow openings and would have to be dragged back 
bruised and otherwise injured; often they were burned by having to 
ascend chimneys which had not sufficiently cooled. In several instances 
master sweeps were convicted of abducting boys and employing httle 
girls for this work. 

138 1. the peep peep of a young sparrow. " The boy had to climb 
from the fireplace to the top of the chimney and to announce the 
accomplishment of his mission by crying out ' Sweep ! ' when his soot- 
covered head and face emerged from the chimney-top" (McCarthy's 
Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, p. 269). This precaution was taken to pre- 
vent incomplete work. 

138 24-25. the old stage direction in Macbeth. See IV, i. 

139 8. the only Salopian house : Mr. Read's shop. " Saloop " was 
an aromatic drink, prepared from sassafras bark and other ingredients, 
at one time much used in London. 

141 12. Hogarth. See Lamb's essay On the Genhis and Character of 
Hogarth. 

141 30-31. " A sable cloud turns forth," etc. : Comus, 1. 223. Note the 
halo cast over the subject by poetic association in which enjoyment of 
the wit is mingled wuth admiration of its beauty. 

142 14. Arundel Castle : a noble mansion on the Strand in London, 
in the gardens of which were originally placed the famous Arundelian 
marbles. 

142 20. Venus lulled Ascanius. See Virgil's ^;z^zV/, 1,643-722. When 
the goddess plotted to make Dido fall in love with ^neas, Cupid went 
to "Dido in the guise of Ascanius, while the latter remained with 
Venus. 

143 18. Jem White : James White, a schoolmate of Lamb's at Christ's 
Hospital, and for years afterw^ards "the companion of his lighter moods." 
In 1795 he published the supposititious Original Letters of Sir John 
Falstaff, a book full of quaint old-fashioned humor that pleased Lamb 
greatly. He died in 1820. 

143 24. the fair of St. Bartholomew. This great national fair with its 
variety of shows was held at Smithfield, London, from 11 33 till 1840, 
and became an occasion of popular amusement and unbridled license. 
See Ben Jonson's comedy, Bartholomew Fair (1614), and Morley's 
Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair (1857). 

144 10. our trusty companion Bigod. See note on p. 333. 

14413. Rochester in his maddest days: John Wilmot, Earl of 
Rochester (1647-1680), a poet of the court of Charles 11. He erected 



NOTES 269 

a stage on Tower Hill and played the mountebank, was in a state of 
inebriety for five years, and the hero of numerous disguises and 
intrigues. 

144 17. old dame Ursula : also the name of the pig woman in Jonson's 
play. 

145 2. the "Cloth": the clergy, who formerly wore a distinguishing 
costume of gray or black by which they might be recognized. 

145 14-15. " Golden lads and lasses must," etc. See Cynibeline, IV, ii. 

Review Questions. 1. What literary use does Lamb make of the 
sense of taste ? 2. Examine the use of color, light, and shade. Ainger 
calls this '* a study in black." Defend statement. Cf. with color scheme 
in St. Valentine' s Day. 3. Where does Lamb give dignity to homely 
subjects : {a) by use of learned words ; {U) by poetic association (cf. Mil- 
ton) ; (<;) by classical and biblical allusions ? 4. How does he produce 
his humorous effects ? Find examples of pun, parody, and contrast. 
5. What poem on a preexistent state was written by a friend of 
Lamb's ? 6. Explain the figure in " May the Brush supersede the 
Laurel." 7. Explain the following : y22:z^^^j- .(4z/^r«z, kibed heels, yclept, 
oleaginous, fuliginous, welkin, Cheapside, Hogarth, Rachel (Matthew 
ii. 18), incunabula, quoited, younkers, unctuous. 



XIX. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 

London Magazine, September, 1822 

In a letter to Bernard Barton of March 11, 1823, Lamb acknowledges 
his indebtedness for the idea of this essay to his friend, Thomas Man- 
ning, mathematical tutor in Cambridge. Mr. Charles Kent and Mr. 
Carew Hazlitt think that the author owed the suggestion to an Italian 
poem by Tigrinio Bistonio entitled Gli Elogi del Porco (Modena, 1761), 
" The Praises of the Pig." Bistonio was the pseudonym of the abbot 
Giuseppe Ferrari. Mr. Richard Garnett and Canon Ainger, however, 
dispute this opinion, and find the original tale in a treatise called De 
Abstinentia by Porphyry of Tyre in the third century. Manning may 
have seen the legend in some Chinese form during his travels in China 
or Thibet. On the other hand, it is more probable that he may have 
learned it from Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, who brought out a 
translation of Porphyry in 1823. 

145 22. a Chinese manuscript ; probably a fantastic creation of 
Lamb's imagination. 



2/0 NOTES 

145 22. my friend M. : Thomas Manning. Lamb was introduced to him 
by Lloyd in 1799, ^^^ ^ lifelong friendship resulted. For several years 
an interesting correspondence passed between them, of which Talfourd 
says, " In his letters to Manning a vein of wild humour breaks out, of 
which there are but slight indications in the correspondence with his 
more sentimental friends ; as if the very opposition of Manning's more 
scientific powers to his own force of sympathy provoked the sallies 
which the genial kindness of the mathematician fostered." 

145 26-27. their great Confucius : the celebrated Chinese philosopher, 
traveler, and teacher (550-478 B.C.). 

15030-31. "Ere sin could blight," etc. : from Coleridge's Epitaph on 
an Infant, a poem in the joint volume of 1796. 

152 9-10. school . . . over London Bridge : " an audacious indifference 
to fact." Lamb's school was not across the river. 

153 10. St. Omer's : a Catholic college for British youth in the city of 
that name in France. Lamb, of course, never attended it. 

Review Questions. 1. Note the humor of the title. Why better 
than one like "Tradition of the Origin of Cooking"? 2. Is the effect 
of the quotation " Ere sin could blight," etc., burlesque or mock 
heroic? Cf. treatment with Battle of the Books and Rape of the Lock. 
3. Compare humor with that in essays already studied. Is it broader 
— more delicate? Why? 4. Is there a vein of satire in the essay? 
5. How does it rank as a short story ? 6. Examine point of view and 
sentence structure, and note effects. 7. Where is there a play on 
words ? 8. Note meaning and use of the words : mast, younkers, booby, 
crackling, me (in second paragraph), pmludium, sapors, batten, villatic, 
brawn (boar's flesh), intenerating, and dulcifying. 

XX. ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN 

London Magazine, October, 1822 

153 (title). Munden, Joseph Shepherd (i 758-1832) : an English actor 
whose admiration for Garrick determined him to go on the stage. His 
first appearance in London was with a company of strolling players in 
1790. He created the parts of Sir Robert Bramble, Ephraim Smooth, 
Caustic, Old Rapid, etc., and acted them with great applause. His 
greatest triumph was in the role of Old Domton in The Road to Ruin. 
He retired from the stage on May 31, 1824. 

153 27. Cockletop : a character in O'Keefe's (1747-1833) comedy 
Modern Antiques ; or, The Merry Mourners. 



NOTES 271 

154 3-4. "There the antic sate," etc. See Richard II, III, ii. 

154 15-16. like the faces which . . . come, etc. Cf. De Quincey's 
Confessions, Wauchope's edition, pp. 137-140. 

154 22. Hogarth. Lamb probably refers to an exhibition of Hogarth's 
paintings held in London in the winter of 1819-1820. 

15426. Farley, Charles (1771-1859) : a London actor and theatrical 
machinist, author of The Magic Oak, Aggressio7i, etc. He played with 
much success the parts of Jeremy in Love for Love, Grindoff in The 
Miller and His Men, and Lord Trinket in The Jealous Wife. 

154 27. Liston, John (i 776-1846) : a noted London comedian, con- 
nected at various times with the Haymarket, Covent Garden, Olympic, 
and Drury Lane theaters. His most popular role was Paul Pry in John 
Poole's farce by that name. See Doran's E^tglish Stage, II, 351. 

154 31. Hydra. See note on p. 353. Byron nicknamed his mother 
" Hydra." 

155 9. Old Dornton : a great banker in Holcroft's comedy The Road 
to Rtmt (1792). He adores his son Harry, whom he spoils by alternate 
indulgence and sternness. 

155 19. " sessa " : an exclamation urging to speed. See Kifzg Lear, 
III, iv, 104; vi, 76. 

155 27. Cassiopeia's chair: a beautiful circumpolar constellation con- 
taining thirty stars brighter than the sixth magnitude. It represents the 
wife of Cepheus, an Ethiopian king, seated in a chair with both arms 
raised. 

155 30. Fuseli, John Henry (1741-1825) : a Swiss-Englisii painter and 
art critic. 

XXI. MUNDEN'S FAREWELL 

London Magazine, July, 1824 

Talfourd mentions a pleasing incident of the evening. Ori account 
of the dense crowd at the performance. Lamb and his sister were pro- 
vided by Munden with seats in a corner of the orchestra close to the 
stage. During the play he saw Munden hand Lamb a huge tankard, 
which EHa quaffed to the dregs with a relish while his old friend looked 
on with evident gusto. Half a century later this same occurrence was 
related to Mr. Kent by Miss Kelly, who observed it from an upper 
box. It was also upon this occasion that Mary Lamb convulsed her 
almost tearful brother with the pun, " Sic transit gloria Munden ! " 

15615. Sir Peter Teazle: an old gentleman in Sheridan's School for 
Scandal (1777). He marries a country girl who proves vain, selfish, 



2/2 NOTES 

and extravagant. He loves her but continually nags her for her infe- 
rior birth and rustic ways. See Watkins's Life of Sheridan. 

156 16. Sir Robert Bramble : a character in Colman's The Poor 
Gentleman (1802). He is testy but generous, fond of argument but 
impatient of flattery. 

156 18. Jemmy Jumps : a character in Shield's opera The Farmer 
(1788). 

157 34. Humphrey Dobbin : a blunt old retainer and confidential 
servant of Sir Robert Bramble, under whose rough exterior beats a 
heart full of kindness. 

Review Questions. 1. Analyze the humor in the description of 
Munden's facial expression. 2. On what ground is his work as an actor 
compared with Hogarth the artist's ? 3. Observe the author's enthusi- 
asm in Munden's Farewell. Lamb here shows plainly the joy of the 
artist in his work. 4. Describe Munden's dress and acting in the part 
of Old Dozey. 5. "What do you learn of Lamb's favorite plays in the 
last two essays ? 

XXII. A CHAPTER ON EARS 
London Magazine, March, 1821 

159 14. I have no ear. This confession of Elia should be accepted 
only in a very limited sense. Lamb seems to have been, as Mr. Mac- 
donald remarks, " not so much without the receptive ear, as without 
the expressive organ." Canon Ainger, however, speaks of his indiffer- 
ence to music as " one of the best-known features of his personality." 
I find in the Poetry for Children a half -serious poem To a Young Lady, 
on being too fond of Music, the last stanza of which is : 

A benefit to books we owe 

Music can ne'er dispense ; 
The one does only sound bestow, 

The other gives us sense. 

159 24. Defoe, Daniel (1659 ?- 1731), author of Robinson Crusoe, 
Mejnoirs of a Cavalier, Journal of the Plague Year, Colonel Jacque, 
Roxana, etc. In 1702 he wrote The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, 
a pamphlet satirizing the High-Church Tories, in consequence of which 
he was sentenced to stand for three days in the pillory, with the addi- 
tion of a fine and a long imprisonment in Newgate. Lamb here has 



NOTES 273 

in mind Pope's famous but incorrect statement about the mutilation 
of Defoe's ears, — 

Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe. 

The mob, instead of pelting him, drank his health and wreathed the 
pillory with flowers, and Defoe himself published his caustic Hymn to 
the Pillory, beginning 

Hail hieroglyphic state machine 
Contrived to punish fancy in : 
Men that are men, in thee can feel no pain, 
And all thy insignificants disdain. 

In the Londoniox March, 1825, Lamb published a characteristic paper 
under the title of Reflections in the Pillory (see Shepherd's ed., p. 423). 

160 13, Alice W n. The reader is to guess that the name is Win- 

terton, and to rest assured that he is wrong (Macdonald). 

160 22. My friend A's : Lamb's friend and correspondent, William 
Ayrton (i 777-1 858), a well-known musical critic. 

161 15. Jubal. See Genesis iv. 21. 

162 6. Hogarth, William (1697-1764): a celebrated English painter 
and engraver. Among his best known works are the " Harlot's Prog- 
ress," " Rake's Progress," " Marriage a la Mode," " The Distressed 
Poet," "The Enraged Musician," "Industry and Idleness." Lamb 
wrote an admirable critical essay On the Genius and Character of 
Hogarth (first pubhshed in Leigh Hunt's Reflector, 181 1), which for 
originality and power is scarcely matched in all English literature of its 
kind. 

16213. "Party in a parlour," etc.: from a stanza in the original 
draft of Wordsworth's Peter Bell (1819). It was omitted in all subse- 
quent editions. 

162 31-32. Like that disappointing book in Patmos. See Revela- 
tion X. 10. 

162 33. Burton." See note on p. 242. 

163 26-27. My good Catholic friend, Nov : Vincent Novello (1781 

-1 861), an English organist, composer, and musical editor. He was the 
father of Joseph Alfred Novello, a well-known music publisher in Lon- 
don, of Clara Novello, Countess Gigliucci, the soprano singer, and of 
Mrs. Cowden Clarke, editor of a Shakespeare concordance. 

164 4. that, in which the psalmist, etc. See Psalms Iv. 6 and 
cxix. 9. 



274 NOTES 

164 9. "rapt above earth," etc.: "as I thus sat, these and other 
sights had so fully possessed my soul with content that I thought, as 
the poet has happily expressed it, 

" I was for that time lifted above earth ; 

And possessed joys not promised at my birth." 

— Walton's Complete Angler, Part I, Chapter IV. 

164 17. . dolphin-seated ride those Arions : in Greek mythology, a 
celebrated player on the cithara, of Methymna in Lesbos, rescued from 
drowning by a dolphin. 

164 17. Haydn, Joseph (1732-1809): an Austrian composer, whose 
principal works are "The Creation," "The Seven Words," "The 
Seasons," and the Austrian national hymn. 

164 18. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) : an Austrian com- 
poser, whose six hundred productions included more than forty sym- 
phonies, a number of masses, sonatas, quartets, operas, etc. 

164 18. Bach : a noted German family of musicians, among whose 
members were Johann Michael, Johann Sebastian, Karl Philipp Eman- 
uel, Wilhelm Friedemann, two by the name of Johann Christian, and 
five by the name of Johann Christoph. 

16418. Beethoven, Ludwig von (1770-1827): an Austrian musician, 
of Dutch descent, among whose compositions are three trios, three 
piano sonatas, nine symphonies, " Prometheus," " Mount of Olives," 
and " Kreutzer Sonata." 

164 29. Marcion : an heretical religious teacher of Sinope in Pontus, 
in the second century, who founded at Rome the Marcionite sect, which 
lasted until the seventh century or later. He taught that there were 
three primal forces : the Demiurge, the finite and imperfect God of the 
Jews; the good God, first revealed by Jesus Christ; and the evil matter, 
ruled by the devil. He rejected the Old Testament, denied the incar- 
nation and resurrection, repeated baptism thrice, excluded wine from 
the eucharist, inculcated an extreme asceticism, and allowed women to 
minister (CV«/z/rrj/ Cyclopedia). 

164 29. Ebion : the supposed founder of the Ebionites, a party of 
Judaizing Christians which appeared in the second century. A part of 
them emphasized the obligations of the Mosaic law, and others were 
more speculative and leaned toward Gnosticism. 

164 30. Cerinthus : an heretical religious teacher of Jewish descent 
who was born in Egypt in the first century. Milman says that " his 
system was a singular and apparently incongruous fusion of Jewish, 
Christian, and Oriental notions." 



NOTES 275 

164 30. Gog and Magog: See note on the Guildhall giants on 
p. 241. 

165 7. Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) : a London essayist, poet, and miscel- 
laneous writer. He edited and practically wrote the Examiner^ the 
Reflector, the Iizdicator, the Cojnpanion, the Liberal, the Tatler, and the 
London Journal, and was the author of the Story of Rimini, Recollections 
of Lord Byron, and a delightful Autobiography. 

Review Questions. 1. Note the originality of the title of this Essay 
on Music. 2. What variants does the author use to avoid the repetition 
of " ears " ? Cf . the opening paragraph of Poor Relations, where we find 
the same trick of style, — ingenuity of phrase and richness of vocabu- 
lary. 3. Does the author show familiarity with the work of the great 
composers ? 4. Where does the language drop into archaic forms ? 

5. Note Lamb's use of parentheses, of capitals, of italics, of alliteration. 

6. Explain the following: sostenuto, adagio, heresiarch, tritons, mime, 
Baralipton, pillory, malleus hereticorum. 



XXIII. ALL FOOLS' DAY 

London Magazine, April, 182 1 

167 2-3. let us troll the catch of Amiens : As Yozi Like It, II, v, 50-53. 
duo ad me: more correctly ducddme, a meaningless refrain, metrically 
parallel to Amiens's " Come hither." Halliwell quotes a similar refrain, 
" Dusadam-me-me," from a manuscript of Piers Plowman, where the 
printed copies have " How trolly-lolly." A world of ingenuity has been 
wasted on this word, to prove it Latin, Welsh, Gaelic, etc. It was cor- 
rected by Hanmer to due ad me, " bring him to me." If any change is nec- 
essary, the best is Mr. Ainger's " Ducdome," which makes a rhyme with 
" come to me," where at present there is only an assonance (J. C. Smith). 

167 13. "the crazy old church clock," etc. : a quotation from Words- 
worth's poem entitled The Fountain: a Conversation. 

167 15. Empedocles : a Greek philosopher, poet, and statesman, who 
was bom at Agrigentum, in Sicily, and lived about 455-395 B.C. He 
was said to have thrown himself into the crater of Mount Etna in order 
that, from his sudden disappearance, the people might believe him to 
be a god. See Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets, Vol. I, p. 207. 

167 19. Cleombrotus (380-371 B.C.): a king of Sparta, who waged 
war with the Thebans and was defeated and killed by them at the battle 
of Leuctra. 



2/6 NOTES 

167 25. Herodotus (484? -424? B.C.): a celebrated Greek historian, 
born at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor. He wrote a history in nine books, 
named after the Muses, of the Persian invasion of Greece. He is sur- 
named " the Father of History." 

167 30-31. our Monument on Fish-Street Hill: a fluted column, two 
hundred and two feet in height, designed by Wren and erected in 
1 671-167 7 in commemoration of the Great Fire of London in 1666, 
w^hich destroyed four hundred and sixty streets with eighty-nine churches 
and 13,200 houses. — Baedeker's London and its Environs, pp. i lo-i 11. 

168 1. Alexander, the Great (356-323 B.C.) : the famous king of 
Macedon, son of Philip and a pupil of Aristotle. He conquered Thrace, 
Illyria, Thebes, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and overthrew the Persian 
Empire. 

168 4. Mister Adams : Parson Abraham Adams, in Fielding's novel 
Joseph Andrews, a poor curate whose adventures, chiefly ludicrous, in the 
company of Joseph Andrews constitute a large part of the book. He 
was an excellent scholar, brave, generous, and friendly to an excess, and 
so simple that he never had any intention to deceive and never suspected 
such a design in others. 

168 5-6. Mistress Slipslop: Lady Booby's "waiting gentlewoman" 
in Joseph Aftdrews. She is a personification of the richest humor and 
the most lifelike reality. Sheridan borrowed some of her traits for his 
Mrs. Malaprop, and Dickens for his Mrs. Gamp. 

168 9. Good Master Raymond Lully (i235?-i3i5) : a Spanish alchem- 
ist, who went as a missionary to the Mussulmans of Asia and Africa. 
He was the author of Ars Magna, A Systejn of Logic, and many other 
works. 

168 11. Duns Scotus (1265 ?-i3o8 ?) : a great Scotch scholar, born at 
Dunse. He became a Franciscan friar and held professorships of 
theology at Oxford and Paris. liis name came to be used as a synonym 
for a very learned man and, being applied satirically to ignorant and 
stupid persons, gave rise to dunce in its present sense. 

16816. Master Stephen: a conceited, small-minded youth, in Ben 
Jonson's Every Man in His Humour (1598). He thinks that all inferiors 
should be snubbed and bullied, and that all those w'eaker and more 
cowardly than himself should be kicked and beaten. 

168 16. Cokes, Bartholomew : a foolish young squire in Ben Jonson's 
comedy Bartkolomeiv Fair, " unquestionably the most finished picture 
of a simpleton that the mimetic art ever produced" (Gifford). 

168 17. Aguecheek, Sir Andrew: a timid, silly, but amusing country 
squire, fleeced by Sir Toby Belch, in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. 



NOTES 277 

168 18. Master Shallow : a lying, roguish, weak-minded country jus- 
tice, in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV. He is supposed to be a caricature 
of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote. 

168 19. Master Silence: a dull country justice in the same play. He 
is a cousin to Shallow, and prides himself on having " been merry twice 
and once ere now." 

168 19. Slender, Master Abraham: a provincial gentleman, cousin to 
Robert Shallow, in Merry Wives of Windsor. He is an inimitable 
official booby, in love with "sweet Anne Page." 

168 23. honest R : according to Lamb's Key, one Ramsay, who 

kept the London Library, in Ludgate Street. 

168 29. Good Granville S : Granville Shaip, the abolitionist, who 

died in 1813 (Lamb's Key). 

168 30. "King Pandion, he is dead," etc.: from the verses On a 
Nightingale formerly ascribed to Shakespeare, but now known to have 
been written by Richard Barnfield. 

168 33. Armado, Don Adriano de : a pompous, afEected Spaniard, 
"whom the music of his own vain tongue did ravish," in Love's Labor'' s 

Lost (1594)- 

168 33. Quisada, Don Quixote: a gaunt country gentleman of La 
Mancha, the hero of Cervantes's Spanish romance of that name (161 5). 
He is described as a tall, lantern-jawed, hawk-nosed, grizzle-haired man, 
who styles himself " The Knight of the Woeful Countenance." He is 
crazed with ideas of chivalry, and goes forth as a knight-errant, thinking 
windmills to be giants, flocks of sheep to be armies, inns to be castles, 
and galley slaves oppressed gentlemen. 

169 5. Macheath, Captain : a fine, bold-faced ruffian, leader of a 
gang of highwaymen, in Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1727). He finds 
himself dreadfully embarrassed between Polly, his wife, and Lucy, to 
whom he has promised marriage. 

169 9. that Malvolian smile : MalvoHo is Olivia's steward in Twelfth 
Night (1614), a conceited, grave, self-important personage, who is 
tricked by Maria with a forged letter leading him to suppose that his 
mistress is in love with him, and telling him to dress in yellow, cross- 
gartered stockings and to smile on the lady. See III, iv, 11. 

169 20. I read those Parables: (i) the two builders, Matthew vii. 
24-27; (2) the talents, Matthew xxv. 14-30; (3) the ten virgins, 
Matthew xxv. 1-13. 

Review Questions. 1. What evidence does this essay furnish of the 
wide and catholic range of Lamb's reading both in ancient and in modern 



2/8 NOTES 

literature ? 2. Whom does the author invite to his Fools' Banquet ? 
Can you justify the selections ? 3. One will note Lamb's intimate 
acquaintance with the famous Lempriere's Classical Dictionary — once 
the schoolboy's inseparable companion. 4. What suggestions do you 
find in the essay as to the time of its composition ? 



XXIV. THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 

London Magazine^ May, 1 82 1 

170 21. Ortelius, Abraham (i 527-1 598) : a Flemish geographer, who 
published an atlas, Theatruni orbis terrarum (1570), etc. He came to 
England in 1577, and it was his encouragement that induced Camden 
to produce his Britannia. 

170 29. Arrowsmith, Aaron (1750-1823): a noted English geographer 
and chartographer. Among his publications are ^ Chart of the World 
as on Mercator's Projection (1790), Maps of the World (1794), Maps of 
North America (1796), etc. 

171 11-12. My friend M. See note on p. 270. 

171 13. Euclid : a famous Greek geometer, who lived at Alexandria 
about 300 B.C. His principal work is the Elements (2T0txe?a), in thir- 
teen books, parts of which have been largely used in text-books of 
elementary geometry down to the present time. 

17115-16. "small Latin and less Greek": a quotation from Ben 
Jonson's Lines on Master William Shakespeare. It is a good-natured 
reference of the learned London playwright to his friend's lack of 
exact scholarship. 

172 1. Bishopsgate : the principal entrance through the northern 
wall of old London. 

172 1-2. Shacklewell. See note on p. 229. 

172 17. Smithfield : a locality in London north of St. Paul's. It 
was formerly a recreation ground, and was long famous for its cattle 
market. In the reign of Queen Mary many martyrs were there burnt 
at the stake. 

172 33. the Sirens : sea nymphs who by their singing fascinated those 
who sailed past their island, and then destroyed them. In works of 
art they are represented as having the head, arms, and bust of a beau- 
tiful young woman, and the wings and lower part of the body of a bird. 

172 34. Achilles : the son of Peleus and Thetis, and the bravest of 
the Greeks in the Trojan War. His mother, to prevent him from 
going to the war, where she knew he was to perish, privately sent him 



NOTES 279 

to the court of Lycomedes, where he was disguised in female dress. 
There he was discovered by a clever ruse of Ulysses. 

173 1. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). See Introduction, p. xxix. 
173 16. the North Pole Expedition : Lamb refers probably to the 

second Arctic expedition undertaken for the British admiralty by Lieu- 
tenant Parry in 182 1. A search for the Northwest Passage had been 
made by Captain John Ross and Lieutenant Parry in 18 18. 

174 6. Lily, William (1468-1522): a noted English grammarian, a 
friend of Colet, Erasmus, and More, and one of the first teachers of 
Greek in England. His Latin Grammar (1540) was the national text- 
book, and continued in popular use in various editions for many years. 
In its revised form, A Short Introduction of Grammar (1574), it was 
used and quoted by Shakespeare. 

174 6. Linacre, Thomas (1460? -1524) : a famous English physician 
and classical scholar. He taught in Oxford and had among his pupils 
More and Erasmus. 

174 19-22. King Basileus . . . Pamela . . . Philoclea . . . Mopsa . . . 
Damaetas : characters in Sir Philip Sidney's pastoral romance, The Coun- 
tess of Pembroke'' s Arcadia (1590). In modern literature Arcadia is an 
ideal realm where ambition and crimes are unknown, a land of dream 
and enchantment, of brave exploit, unblemished chastity, constant love, 
and undying friendship, where piping shepherds and coy shepherdesses 
live in rustic simplicity and plenty. See Mahaffy's History of Classical 
Greek Literature, Vol. I, p. 420, and Cross's Development of the English 
Novel, p. II. 

174 23. Colet, John (1466-15 19) : an English theologian and classical 
scholar, dean of St. Paul's (1505), and founder of St. Paul's School 
(15 1 2). He was the intimate friend of Erasmus and More, and one of 
the chief promoters of the " new learning " and indirectly of the Refor- 
mation. — Century Cyclopedia. 

174 33. Milton, John (1608-1674): the great epic poet, author of 
Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Comus, Lycidas, and other poems, 
and of several eloquent prose works, one of which, the Tractate of 
Education to Master Samuel Uartlib, is mentioned below. 

174 34. Solon (638P-559? e.g.): a wise Athenian lawgiver. He 
became archon in 594, and instituted many reforms, improving the con- 
dition of debtors, dividing the population into classes, and reorganizing 
the Boule, the popular assembly, and the council of the Areopagus. 

175 1. Lycurgus : a Spartan legislator who lived probably in the 
ninth century B.C. Pie was the traditional author of the laws and 
institutions of Sparta. 



28o NOTES 

176 14. Mr. Bartley's Orrery : an astronomical machine ingeniously 
constructed to exhibit the motions of the planets around the sun, etc. 
The original Orrery was made by Rowley in 17 15 under the patronage 
of Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, in whose honor it was named. 

176 22. Even a child, that " plaything for an hour " : a free quotation 
from a poem by Lamb in the Poetry for Children (1809) : 

A child 's a plaything for an hour ; 

Its pretty tricks we try 
For that or for a longer space ; 
Then tire and lay it by. 

177 23. Gulliver, Lemuel : an honest, blunt English sailor, the hero 
of Swift's Gulliver'' s Travels (1726), a political prose sa,tire consisting 
of four imaginary voyages, — to Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the 
country of the Houyhnhnms. See Gosse's History of Eighteenth Century 
Liter attire, pp. 1 59-161. 

179 29. My cousin Bridget : Mary Lamb, the author's sister. 

Review Questions. 1. Look up the numerous geographical references 
in this essay. 2. Note the structure of the essay as a whole. 3. Con- 
trast the aims and methods of the two schoolmasters. 4. Is Lamb a 
learned writer ? 5. Is there a touch of pathos in this essay ? 

XXV. MY FIRST PLAY 
London Magazine, December, 1821 

180 5. Old Drury : Drury Lane Theater, one of the principal play- 
houses of London, situated on Russell Street, near Drury Lane. It was 
first opened in 1663. 

180 5. Garrick's Drury. See note on p. 258. 

180 15. My godfather F. : we know nothing else of Lamb's god- 
father, but there is a slight probability that he was a Field and a 
relative, however distant, of Mrs. Lamb. 

180 19. John Palmer. See note on p. 266. 

188 22. Sheridan. See note on p. 240. 

180 24. elopement with him from a boarding-school : she took flight, 
not from a boarding-school, but from her own home. 

181 12. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (4 ? B.C. -65 a.d.) : a celebrated 
Roman Stoic philosopher. He was the author of fifteen prose treatises 
and nine tragedies. The Emperor Nero was one of his pupils. 

181 12. Varro, Marcus Terentius (116-27? B.C.): a learned Roman 
scholar and author. His works number no less than seventy-four titles, 



NOTES 281 

comprising six hundred and twenty books, and embrace almost all 
. branches of knowledge. 

181 22-23. the only landed property, etc. : a piece of humorous 
fabrication. 

182 11-12. Rowe's Shakespeare : this edition was brought out in 1709 
by Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) and Jacob Tonson (1656 ? -1736). Rowe 
was poet laureate and author oi Jane Shore, Ulysses, The Fair Penitent, 
and other tragedies. Tonson was a well-known London bookseller and 
publisher. 

182 25. Artaxerxes (1762): an opera by Thomas Augustine Arne 
(17 10-1778), a London composer and author of the operas "Britannia," 
"Eliza," and the oratorios "Abel" and "Judith." 

183 3. Harlequin : originally a conventional clown, the servant of 
Pantaloon, in the improvised Italian comedy. He was noted for his 
agility and gluttony, and carried a sword of lath. In English pantomime 
he was dignified and made popular by the acting of Rich, O'Brien, 
Grimaldi, and Woodward. He hardly exists now save in Christmas 
pantomimes and puppet shows. 

183 7. the legend of St. Denys : Saint Denys was the apostle to the 
Gauls, and was beheaded, it is said, at Paris, 272 a.d. He is the patron 
saint of France, and is represented in paintings as bearing his own 
head in his hands. 

183 11. Lun : so John Rich (1692-1761), who introduced pantomime, 
called himself when he performed Harlequin. 

183 20-21. the Way of the World (1700): a comedy by William 
Congreve (1670-1729). 

183 22-23. Lady Wishfort : an irritable, decayed beauty, who painted 
and enameled her face to make herself look blooming, and was afraid 
to frown lest the enamel might crack. At the age of threescore she 
assumed all the coy airs of a girl of sixteen. See The Way of the 
World. 

184 26-27. to crop some unreasonable expectations : Mr. Fitzgerald 
points out that in John Forster's copy this is altered in Lamb's own 
handwriting to drop. 

184 29. Mrs. Siddons (i 7 55-183 1) : Sarah Siddons, the most celebrated 
English tragic actress. She took a prominent part in the revival of 
Shakespeare, playing the parts of the tragic heroines with extraordinary 
success. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as " The Tragic Muse " in 
Lady Macbeth, her greatest role. See Hazlitt's beautiful essay on this 
most remarkable woman ; also Lamb's sonnet, inspired by her and 
originally published in the Morning Chronicle in 1794. 



282 NOTES 

184 29. Isabella: a. nun in Southern's T/ie /^atal Marriage {i6g2). It 
was a part considered *' scarcely inferior in pathos to Belvidera " in 
Otway's Venice Preserved (Chambers). Hamilton painted Mrs. Siddons 
as Isabella. Campbell says that Mrs. Barry also was unrivaled in that 
part. 

Review Questions. 1. What do you infer from the above paper of 
Lamb's fondness for the theater, and of his familiarity with plays, actors, 
etc. ? 2. What light does the author here throw on contemporary cus- 
toms ? 3. Study the characterization of the grandfather. 4. The student 
would do well at this point to familiarize himself with the character of 
Sheridan, and to read his masterpiece, The Rivals, which became so 
popular in America through the acting of our own beloved Joseph Jef- 
ferson. 5. Examine the sentence structure in the sixth paragraph. 
6. What is the explanation of "harlequin" and "motley" ? 

XXVI. MODERN GALLANTRY 
London Magazine, November, 1822 

185 18. Dorimant : a genteel, witty libertine in Etherege's The Man 
of Mode, or Sir Fopling Fhitter (1676). The original of this character 
was the Earl of Rochester. 

186 26. Edwards, Thomas : author of Canons of Cj-iticism, a very 
acute commentary upon Warburton's emendations of Shakespeare. He 
was a mediocre poet, but his sonnets are carefully constructed on the 
Miltonic scheme, which perhaps accounts for Lamb's exaggerated 
epithet (Ainger). His sonnet To Air. J. Paice is quoted by Mr. Ainger 
in his edition of the Essays of Elia, p. 394. 

187 18. Sir Calidore : the knight of courtesy and the hero of the sixth 
book of Spenser's Faerie Queene. The model of this character was 
Sir Philip Sidney. In his quest of the Blatant Beast (the modern 
Mrs. Grundy) he falls in love with Pastorella, a shepherdess (Lady 
Frances Walsingham) with whom he has various adventures. 

187 18. Sir Tristan, or Tristram : one of the bravest and best of the 
Knights of the Round Table. He loved unlawfully his aunt, the 
beautiful Isolde, in consequence of which he was slain by her husband, 
King Mark. The story has been told in English prose by Sir Thomas 
Malory in part second of the History of Prince Arthur, and in poetry 
by Alfred Tennyson in The Last Tournatnent, and Matthew Arnold in 
Tristram and Isolde. Richard Wagner's " Tristan und Isolde " has told 
the story in grand opera. 



NOTES 283 

Review Questions. 1. Is the satire in this essay keener than is usual 
with Lamb ? 2. Observe the paragraph structure. 3. Analyze the 
character of Paice from the hints given. 4. How does Lamb avoid 
the repetition of " old maid " ? 5. This essay well illustrates the author's 
refined taste, kindliness of heart, and soundness of judgment. 



XXVII. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 

London Magazine, March, 1822 

189 (sub-title). B. F.: Barron Field (1786-1846), an Oxford lawyer, 
whose brother, Francis John Field, was a fellow-clerk of Lamb's at the 
India House. From 1816 to 1824 he was judge of the supreme court 
at Sydney, and a few years afterwards was appointed chief justice of 
Gibraltar. He was the author of Geographical Memoirs and First 
Fruits of Australian Poetry. 

190 1. Mrs. Rowe, Elizabeth (1674-1737) : an exemplary person, and 
now forgotten moralist in verse and prose. Among other works she 
wrote Friendship in Death — in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the 
Living (Ainger). 

190 2. Alcander : a character in Mademoiselle de Scudery's romance 
Clelie. It is a flattering portrait of Louis XIV as a youth of eighteen. 

190 2. Strephon: a shepherd in Sidney's Arcadia, often used as a 
conventional name of a lover. 

190 2. Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667) : a royalist poet, who enjoyed 
a great reputation during his lifetime, but who is now remembered 
quite as well for the excellent style of his essays. 

190 13. Plato (427 ?-347 b.c.) : a famous Greek philosopher who 
founded the Academic school. He was a disciple of Socrates and the 
teacher of Aristotle. His philosophy is still the greatest exposition 
of idealism. His chief works are the Dialogues, which include The 
Symposium, The Republic, Phc^drus, Critias, The Apology, Crito, etc. 
Lamb here refers perhaps to the familiar definition of man, — "a biped 
without feathers." 

190 30. Munden. See note on p. 270. 

192 20-21. the late Lord C. : the second Lord Camelford, who was 
killed in a duel with Best in 1804, and who did leave instructions for 
his burial in " a country far distant." 

193 11. Saint Gothard: bishop of Hildesheim about 1038. 

194 17. Peter Wilkins's island. See note on p. 238. 



284 NOTES 

194 18. Diogenes (412 ?-323 B.C.) : a Greek Cynic philosopher famous 
for his eccentricities. He emigrated to Athens in his youth, became 
a pupil of Antisthenes, and lived, according to Seneca, in a tub. 

195 6. ten Delphic voyages : i.e. to consult the world-renowned oracle 
of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi. 

195 22. ** Ay me ! while thee the seas," etc. : an incorrect quotation 
from Milton's Lycidas. 

195 25. Bridget : Mary Lamb. 

195 28. Sally W r : according to Lamb's Key, Sally Winter, 

a charming and teasing name, that might have belonged to her who 
was "sometimes forward, sometimes coy" (Macdonald). 

195 32. J. W. : James White (d. 1820), a schoolfellow of Lamb's at 
Christ's Hospital, and in later years a friend toward whom he had a 
great general liking — in spite of some causes of imperfect sympathy. 
The good fellowship and mirthfulness which was the note of White's 
character interposed no ease ; nor gave any allowance, seemingly, to 
the more serious feelings of others. So there were times when Lamb 
avoided the company of White as he would have turned from the 
promptings of levity in himself. Nevertheless he always championed 
him loyally, and was urgent to get others to confess w^hat an immense 
fellow and a fine wit — "a wit of the first magnitude " — Jem White 
was (Macdonald). 

Review Questions. 1. What is the peculiar form of this essay? 
Name its advantages. 2. What is Lamb's division of epistolary matter ? 
its humor? 3. Note the exuberant spirits and rollicking fun of this 
essay. 4. Study carefully what Lamb says about puns, in the making 
of which he was himself extraordinarily clever. 5. What is the quality 
of the humor in the closing paragraph ? 6. Note the humor of his 
reference to thieves and thieving. 7. Examine the author's diction, 
explaining such words as visnomy, parasangs, theosophist, flam, cor- 
puscula, etc. 



XXVIII. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS 
IN THE METROPOLIS 

London Magazine., June, 1822 

196 2. Alcides : Hercules, who performed twelve celebrated labors, 
in the course of which he delivered the country from various monsters, 
cleaned the stables of Augeas, etc. 



NOTES 285 

19624. Dionysius, sumamed "The Younger." He succeeded his 
father, the elder Dionysius, as tyrant of Syracuse, was expelled in 356, 
restored in 346, and finally expelled in 343. He fled to Corinth, where, 
to support himself, he kept a school, as Cicero observes, that he might 
still continue to be tyrant. 

196 25. Vandyke, Sir Anthony (i 599-1641). See note on p. 246. 

196 28. Belisarius (505 ?-565) : the greatest general of the Byzantine 
Empire, who conquered the Vandals, the Goths, Sicily, southern Italy, 
Ravenna, and the Persians, and rescued Constantinople from the Bul- 
garian invaders. The tale that in old age he was blind and obliged to 
beg his bread from door to door is now regarded as fictitious. 

197 1. The Blind Beggar in the legend : Henry, the son of Sir Simon 
de Montfort. At the battle of Evesham the barons were routed, Mont- 
fort was slain, and his son Henry left on the field for dead. A baron's 
daughter discovered the young man, nursed him back to 'health, 
and married him. Their daughter was the " pretty Bessy " mentioned in 
this essay. Henry assumed the garb and semblance of a blind beggar 
to escape the vigilance of King Henry's spies. Bessy was wooed by a 
merchant, an innkeeper, and a gentleman, but was finally won by a 
knight. 

A popular ballad called The Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal 
Green was the earliest form of this story, and upon it was based a play 
by Chettle and Day entitled The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with 
the Merry Humours of Tom Stroud (written before May, 1600, but not 
printed till 1659). In the History of Sign- Boards is the statement that 
there was formerly in White Chapel Road a public-house sign called 
" The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green." 

197 13-14. Margaret Newcastle. See note on p. 242. 

197 20. Lear : the octogenarian hero of Shakespeare's tragedy King 
Lear (1605), who, being refused hospitality by his ungrateful daughters, 
Regan and Goneril, spends anight raving in the storm. See III, iv, 1 11. 

197 21. Cresseid: the mythical daughter of a Trojan priest, Calchas. 
She is a character in Chaucer's poem Troilus and Cressida (about 1369), 
also in plays by Dekker and Chettle (acted in 1590), by Shakespeare 
(acted about 1601), and by Dryden (printed in 1678). 

197 25. Lucian (120 ?-2oo ? ) : a celebrated Greek satirist and humor- 
ist. " His Dialogues of the Gods, almost Homeric in their freshness and 
almost Aristophanic in their fun, bring out the ludicrous side of the 
popular Greek faith ; the Dialogues of the Dead are brilliant satires on 
the living" (Jebb). 

197 27. Alexander, the Great. See note on p. 276. 



286 NOTES 

197 28. Semiramis : an Assyrian queen, who founded Babylon, and 
conquered Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya. Many marvelous exploits in the 
Orient were ascribed to her by the Greeks, who regarded her as an 
almost supernatural being. 

197 32. King Cophetua : in ballad poetry, a legendary African king 
who wooed and married Penelophon, a beggar maid. The ballad is 
found in Percy's Reliques, and Tennyson wrote a short poem on the 
subject. 

199 9. Spital sermons : sermons preached formerly at the spital or 
hospital in London, in a pulpit erected expressly for the purpose. Sub- 
sequently they were preached at Christchurch, on Easter Monday and 
Tuesday. 

19912-13. "Look upon that poor and broken bankrupt there": from 
Jaques's reflection over the wounded stag, in As Vou Like It, II, 

i, 57- 

199 14. Tobit : a character in the apocryphal book of the Old Testa- 
ment of that name. He was blinded by sparrows one night while sleep- 
ing outside the wall of his courtyard, but was cured by applying to his 
eyes the gall of a fish which had tried to devour his son Tobias. 

199 29. Vincent Bourne (1697-1747): the "dear Vinny Bourne" of 
Cowper, who was his pupil at Westminster and translated many of his 
Latin verses. In a letter to Wordsworth in 1815, Lamb says, "Since I 
saw you I have had a treat in the reading way, which comes not every 
day, the Latin Poems of V. Bourne, which were quite new to me. What 
a heart that man had, all laid out upon town scenes, a proper counter- 
poise to some people's rural extravaganzas." 

202 7. Antaeus : a Libyan giant and wrestler in Greek mythology. 
He was invincible so long as he remained in contact with his mother, 
the earth. He compelled strangers in his country to wrestle with him, 
and built a house to his father, Poseidon, of their skulls. Hercules dis- 
covered the source of his strength and, lifting him into the air, crushed 
him. 

202 9. as good as an Elgin marble : the Elgin marbles are sculptures 
by Phidias. They were brought from the Parthenon at Athens to Lon- 
don by Lord Elgin (1801-1803), and were purchased in 1816 by the 
British government. 

202 12. Hercules. See note on p. 284. 

202 17. the man-part of a Centaur : the Centaurs in Greek mythology 
were a people of Thessaly, half men and half horses. 

202 18. some dire Lapithan controversy : the Lapithae were a people 
of Thessaly. At the nuptials of Pirithous and Hippodamia, at which 



NOTES 287 

Hercules, Theseus, Dryas, Mopsus, and the other Lapithse together with 
a number of mvited Centaurs were present, the famous battle between 
the Lapithas and the Centaurs was fought. The quarrel had its origin 
in the rude behavior of the Centaurs to the Lapithan women. Many of 
the Centaurs were slain and the rest were obliged to retire to Arcadia. 
203 18. Yorick. See note on p. 250. 

203 31. blind Bartimeus. See Matthew xx. 29-34. 

204 29. my friend L : Charles Valentine Le Grice. See note on 

p. 239. 

205 7-8. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): a noted English poet, novel- 
ist, dramatist, and miscellaneous author. After a roving existence both 
in England and on the Continent, he settled down as a literary hack 
in London. He was a member of Dr. Johnson's Club. Among his 
principal works are The Deserted Village^ The Traveller, The Vicar of 
Wakefield, She Stoops to Conquer, The History of England, and The 
Citizen of the World. 

205 15. the " London." See note on p. 227. 

Review Questions. 1. What was Lamb's general attitude to beggars .'' 
Cf. that of Wordsworth in The Old Cu^nberland Beggar, where he is 
romantic and sentimental rather than economic and practical. 2. What 
instances of famous beggars are cited ? 3. Study with especial atten- 
tion his tremendous description of that truncated Humanity — a passage 
as sublime as a fragmentary Elgin marble. 4. Note the effect of the 
short sentence and the short paragraph in this essay. 5. Verify the 
statement in the Introduction in regard to Lamb's wonderful power of 
observation. 6. What light is thrown here on the richness and depth 
of the author's nature ? 7. Explain the following : besom, purlieus, 
crusade, grice, and groundling. 



XXIX. A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR 
OF MARRIED PEOPLE 

The Reflector, No. 4, 181 1 ; reprinted in the London Magazine, 
September, 1822 

" Notable among the lesser Essays for its sly Elianism. May one 
point out that this essay (and other things of Lamb's) could not have 
been written by a married man, nor yet by a bachelor, as bachelorhood 
goes ? By the life of ' double-singleness ' which he lived with ' my 
eousin Bridget,' he belonged in a manner to both worlds, was a freeman 



288 , NOTES 

of both those faculties quoad hoc — was a bachelor and just himself ; and 
yet a householder, a family man, with a family circle of acquaintances, 
in whose marryings and general menageries he interested himself, with 
little feeling of being an alien or an outsider. In this essay he chooses, 
for the fun of the thing, to make himself one" (Macdonald). 

Review Questions. 1. Analyze the structure of the essay. 2. Is 
Lamb serious or merely quizzing the reader ? 3. Note his use of fig- 
ures of speech. 4. Note that this essay is marked by the entire absence 
of bookishness and learned allusion. 



XXX. ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST 
CENTURY 

London Magazine, April, 1822 

" The essay on The Artificial Comedy of the Last Century has received 
more attention than its importance at all warrants, from the circum- 
stance that Macaulay set to work seriously to demolish its reason- 
ing, in reviewing Leigh Hunt's edition of the Restoration Dramatists. 
Lamb's essay was originally part of a larger essay upon the old actors, 
in which he was led to speak of the comedies of Congreve and 
Wycherley, and the reasons why they no longer held the stage. His 
line of defense is wxll known. He protests that the world in which 
their characters move is so wholly artificial — a conventional world, 
quite apart from that of real life — that it is beside the mark to judge 
them by any moral standard. ' They are a world of themselves almost 
as much as fairy-land.' The apology is really (as Hartley Coleridge 
acutely points out) for those who, like himself, could enjoy the wit of 
these writers, without finding their actual judgment of moral questions 
at all influenced by it. It must be admitted that Lamb does not con- 
vince us of the sincerity of his reasoning, and probably he did not 
convince himself. He loved paradox ; and he loved, moreover, to find 
some soul of goodness in things evil. As Hartley Coleridge adds, 
it was his way always to take hold of things ' by the better handle ' " 
(Ainger's Life of Charles Lamb, pp. 171-172). 

Commenting on this essay, Mr. William Macdonald says : " This 
has been found, by the commonplace, a difiicult morsel of wisdom to 
swallow and quite impossible for them to digest profitably. Their view 
is expressed in Macaulay's Essay on the Restoration Dramatists. 
What his lordship there says is unimpeachable common sense, and 



NOTES 289 

very suitable for his purpose and theirs. Nobody could wish them to 
think otherwise. If such people agreed with the profounder dicta of 
men of genius, nothing but disaster could result — this frame of things, 
as Lamb says, would be reduced to chaos. . . . Here I can only say that 
in proportion as psychology becomes an exact science . . . then more 
and more will the profound truth of Lamb's contention in this essay 
become a thing incontrovertible except by that stupidity which it would 
be a misfortune to conciliate." 

213 10. Congreve, William (1670-1729) : one of the greatest writers 
of comedy of the Restoration period. Among his most popular plays, 
which are celebrated for brilliancy of style and for the wit and vigor of 
the dialogue, are The Dotible Dealer (1693), Love for Love (1695), 
The Mourning Bride (1697), and The Way of the World (1700). 

21310. Farquhar, George (i 678-1 707): an Irish dramatist, born at 
Londonderry, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He removed to 
London about 1697 and there produced a number of successful plays, 
among which were Love in a Bottle (1699), The Inconstant (1702), The 
Stage Coach (1704), The Beaux'' Stratagem (1707), etc. 

214 16. Ulysses : in Greek legend, a king of Ithaca. He was the 
most resourceful of the heroes of the Trojan War, and was especially 
famous for his wanderings and his exploits on the homeward voyage. 
His adventures are celebrated in the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

214 21. Alsatia: formerly a cant name for Whitefriars, a district 
in London between the Thames and Fleet Street, and adjoining the 
Temple. It possessed certain privileges of sanctuary, which were de- 
rived from the Carmelite convent founded there in 1241. The locality 
becoming the resort of libertines and rascals of every description, its 
privileges were abolished in 1697. 

215 11. Wycherley, William (1640? -17 15) : a dramatist and courtier 
at the court of Charles II and James II. He was the author of Love 
in a Wood {1 6^2), The Gentleman Dancing Master (16']';^), The Country 
Wife (1675), 3-"<i L'^^^ Plain Dealer (1677). 

215 18. Cato, Marcus Porcius (234-149 B.C.) : a Roman statesman, 
general, and writer, surnamed " The Censor." He sought to restore the 
integrity of morals and simplicity of manners prevalent in the early days 
of the republic. 

215 24. Swedenborgian : the Swedenborgians, or New Churchmen, are 
a sect that believe in the religious doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg 
(1688-1772), a Swedish philosopher and theosophist. He taught that 
spiritual truths are set forth through the correspondence of all material 
things with the spiritual principles, good or evil, of which they are the 



290 NOTES 

manifestation. His system is founded upon this doctrine of correspon- 
dencies, he himself claiming to have been prepared for his office by 
open intercourse during many years with spirits and angels and God 
himself. 

215 27. Fainall : a scoundrel in love with Mrs. Marwood, in The Way 
of the World. 

215 27. the Mirabels : a peevish old gentleman and his unstable son, 
in The I?iconstant. 

215 27. Dorimant. See note on p. 282, 

215 28. Lady Touchwood : a brilliant and shameless woman in love 
with her husband's nephew, Mellefont, in Congreve's Double Dealer. 

215 32, Utopia. See note on p. 262. 

216 8. Angelica : a witty and piquant woman, the principal female 
character in Congreve's Love for Love. She was the author's favorite 
character. 

217 11. Sir Simon Addleplot : a coxcomb always in pursuit of women 
of great fortune ; Dapperwit, a vain, half-witted rake ; Miss Martha, 
daughter of an old usurer: three characters in Wycherley's Love in 
a Wood. 

217 12. Lord Froth : a solemn, foolish fop with a coquettish wife ; 
Sir Paul Pliant: an uxorious old gentleman: two characters in Con- 
greve's Double Dealer. 

217 15. Don Quixote. See note on p. 277. 

217 17. Atlantis : an imaginary island in the ocean, the scene of 
(i) Bacon's allegorical romance The New Atlantis ; and (2) Mrs. Manley's 
The New Atlantis (1709), a scandalous chronicle of crime reputed to 
have been committed by persons of high rank, whose names are so 
thinly disguised as to be easily identified. See Tuckerman's History of 
Prose Fiction^ p. 1 23. 

217 24. School for Scandal : a play by Sheridan, first produced at 
Drury Lane Theater, May 8, 1777. It took a position at once as the 
most brilliant comedy of modern society on the English stage. 

217 29. Palmer. See note on p. 266. 
21729-30. Joseph Surface. See note on p. 267. 

218 12. Charles Surface : a light-hearted prodigal and reformed scape- 
grace in The School for Scandal. He is the accepted lover of Maria, 
the rich ward of Sir Peter Teazle. Unlike his brother Joseph, the evil 
of his character is all on the surface. 

219 11. Sir Peter Teazle. See note on pp. 271-272. 

220 16, 20. Crabtree : a mischief-maker, the uncle of Sir Harry Bumber ; 
Sir Benjamin Backbite: a very conceited and censorious gentleman; 



NOTES 291 

Mrs. Candour: a slanderous woman with an affectation of frank amia- 
bility: three characters in Sheridan's School for Scandal. 

220 21. Dodd. See note on p. 265. 

220 22. Miss Pope. " Since the days of Miss Pope, it may be ques- 
tioned whether Mrs. Candour has ever found a more admirable repre- 
sentative " {^Dramatic Memoirs). 

220 27. Saturnalia : the ancient festival of Saturn, celebrated in the 
middle of December as a harvest-home observance. It was a period of 
mirthful license and enjoyment for all classes. 

221 2. Miss Farren. On April 7, 1797, Miss Farren, about to marry 
the Earl of Derby, took her final leave of the stage in the character of 
Lady Teazle. Her concluding words were applicable in a very remark- 
able degree to herself. " Let me request. Lady Sneerwell, that you will 
make my respects to the scandalous college of which you are a member, 
and inform them that Lady Teazle, licentiate, begs leave to return the 
diploma they granted her, as she now leaves off practice, and kills 
characters no longer." A passionate burst of tears here revealed the 
sensibiUty of the speaker, while a stunning burst of applause followed 
from the audience, and the curtain was drawn down upon the play, for 
no more would be listened to (Mrs. C. Mathews, quoted by Brewer). 

221 26. Kemble. See note on p. 254. 

221 26. Valentine Legend : eldest son of Sir Sampson Legend, in 
Love for Love. He is the lover of Angelica, whom he eventually marries. 
Betterton was a famous actor in this part. 

222 4. Niobe : in art, the typical figure of grief, a woman ever weep- 
ing. After losing her twelve children, who were stricken by the shafts 
of Apollo and Artemis, she was changed into a stone, from which water 
ran continually. Cf. Hmnlet, I, ii : 

She followed my poor father's body, 
Like Niobe, all tears. 

22222. Otway. See note on p. 265. 

222 23-24. Sir Edward Mortimer : a character in Colman's Iron Chest 
(1796) ; a most benevolent man, who, haunted by the consciousness of 
being a murderer, finally confesses his crime and dies. 

222 27, My friend G, : William Godwin (1756-1836), a London nov- 
elist, historian, and political economist. He was the author of Political 
Justice (1793), LLi^tory of the Commonwealth (1824-1828), Caleb Wil- 
liams (1794), St. Leon (1799), Antonio^ or the Soldier's Return (1801), 
etc. 



292 NOTES 

Review Questions. 1. What is the ground of Lamb's contention 
throughout this essay ? 2. What are the chief differences morally and 
aesthetically between the artificial comedy of the eighteenth and the 
sentimental comedy of the nineteenth century ? 3. What does he mean 
by " quiet Alsatia of hunted casuistiy " ? 4. Explain the use and value 
of his figures of speech. 5. Describe the acting of Palmer. 6. What is 
the author's criticism of the School for Scandal ? 7. What is his esti- 
mate of the acting of Kemble ? 8. Examine Lamb's use of the follow- 
ing: amphisbaenas, plethory, dulcified, liquefaction, bottomry, mis- 
prision, and protasis. 



FOREIGN TERMS AND QUOTATIONS i 

1 14. manes : shades. 

4 28-29. toga virilis : manly gown. 

5 1. escritoire: writing desk, 

6 1. bon-vivant: jolly companion. 

11 18. Decus et solamen : glory and comfort. 
15 18. quis sculpsit : who engraved it ? 
17 27. ad eundem : to the same grade. 
19 11. variae lectiones : various readings. 
21 2. in manu : in hand (possession). 

21 6. A priori : on general principles, or reasoning from antecedent 
probability. ' . 

24 22. caro equina: horseflesh. 

30 25. auto da fe : act of faith. 

31 13. Ultima Supplicia : supreme punishments. 
34 3. Ululantes : the howling ones. 

34 8. Rex : king. 

34 9. tristis severitas, etc. : stern severity of his countenance. 

34 9. inspicere in patinas : to look upon the plates. 

34 11. vis : force. 

35 3. rabidus furor : raging fury. 

36 10. Cicero De Amicitia : Cicero on Friendship. 

36 20. regni novitas : the newness of the reign. 

37 25. Nireus formosus : handsome Nireus. 

39 2. meum . . . tuum : what is mine . . . what is yours. 
39 18. lene tormentum : gentle torture. 

41 17. cana fides : gray-haired truthfulness. 

42 11. Opera Bonaventurae : Works of Bonaventure. 
46 6. in banco : in the bank. 

68 ]4. JocOs Risus-que: jests and laughter. 

70 24. par excellence : preeminently. 

98 5-6. Hie currus, etc.: here were his chariot and his arms. 

1 In the preparation of this appendix the editor would acknowledge the kind 
assistance of his colleague, Dr. Edwin L. Green, Adjunct Professor of Ancient 
Languages in South Carolina College. 

293 



294 FOREIGN TERMS AND QUOTATIONS 

108 17. ab extra : from without. 
112 26-27. rarus hospes : rare guest. 

118 22. Non tunc illis erat locus : there was not then a place for them, 
i.e. they were not present. 

118 31. horresco referens : I shudder at the mention of it. 

130 30. in puris naturalibus : in its real nature. 

136 7. dramatis personae : the characters. 

138 13-14. fauces Averni: the entrance to the lower world. 

143 13. incunabula : cradle. 

149 28. mundus edibilis : world of food. 

149 29. princeps obsoniorum : the chief of the viands. 

149 33. £unor immunditiae : love of filth. 

150 2. prseludium : prelude. 

153 13. per flagellationem extremam : by extreme whipping. 

161 9-10. sostenuto : sustained. 

161 10. adagio : slowly. 

163 5. amabilis insania : pleasing madness. 

163 5. mentis gratissimus error : most pleasant mental aberration. 

163 17-18. subrusticus pudor : rustic modesty. 

164 28. malleus hereticorum : the hammer of the heretics. 
166 23. Stultus sum : I am a fool. 

169 27. tendre : tenderness. 

171 30. tete-a-tete : familiar conversation. 

175 22. cum multis aliis : with many other things. 

175 31. moUia tempora f andi : pleasant times for speaking. 

181 10. vice versa : the terms being exchanged. 

• 182 7. pro : for, instead of. 

193 32. melior lutus : better mud. 

193 33. sol pater : father sun. 

196 11. bellum ad exterminationem : war of extermination. 

196 29. obolum : a piece of Attic money worth about three cents. 

202 20. OS sublime : face elevated. 

202 34. Lusus Naturae . . . Accidentium : freak of nature ... of 
accidents. 

209 14. per se : in themselves. 

223 6. d6noument : the end, sequel, result. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



A, My friend, 273 

Absolute, Captain, 266 

Achilles, 278 

Acres, Bob, 266 

Adams, Mr., 276 

Addleplot, Sir Simon, 290 

Aguecheek, Sir Andrew, 276 

Agur, 235 

Alcander, 283 

Alcibiades, 240 

Alcides, 284 

Alexander, 276, 285 

Alice, 244, 264, 273 

Allan C, 228 

Alph, 261 

Alsatia, 289 

Ambrose, 247 

Amicus Rediviviis, 235 

Amiens, 232, 275 

Amlet, Dick, 267 

Anatomy of Melancholy^ 242 

ancestors' money, 246 

Anderton's, 230 

Andrew and John, 233 

Angelica, 290 

Angelo, Michael, 259 

Antaeus, 286 

anti-Caledonian, 253 

antic, 271 

Aquinas, 241 

Arcadia, 279 

Argestes, 249 



Arion, 274 
Armado, 277 
Arrowsmith, 278 
Artaxerxes, 281 
Arundel Castle, 268 
Ascanius, 268 
Ascapart, 241 
Atlantis, 290 
Austin, 247 
auto dafe, 238 

B , 254 

Bach, 274 

Bachelor^s Complaint, etc., A, 287 

Backbite, Sir Benjamin, 266, 290 

Bacon, Friar, 259 

Bank, the, 229 

Bannister, Jack, 266 

banyan days, 236 

Barbican, 231 

Barnes, 233 

Barrington, 258 

Barry more, 264 

Bartimeus, blind, 287 

Bartlemy, 233 

Bartley, Mr., 279 

Barton, 258 

Basileus, King, 279 

Basket Prayer-book, 233 

Bath, 235 

Bayes, 258 

Bedlam, 237 



295 



296 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Beethoven, 274 
Belisarius, 285 
Bellarmine, 241 
Ben Legend, 267 
Bensley, 265 

B. F., 252, 283 
Bigod, 241, 268 
Bishopsgate, 278 
Blandy, Miss, 257 
Blind Beggar, the, 285 
Blue-Coat School, 237 
Bobby, 266 
Bodleian, the, 234 
Boreas, 249 
Bourne, Vincent, 286 
Bowles, 245 

Boyer, James, 238 

Bramble, Sir Robert, 272 

Bridget Elia, 228, 246, 280, 284, 23^ 

Brinsley, 240 

Browne, 241, 244, 245, 253, 279 

Brunswick dynasty, 229 

Bubble, South-Sea, 229 

Bull, 232, 247 

Buncle, 242, 253 

Burgoyne, 231 

Bums, 253 

Burton, 242, 252, 273 

buskin, 266 

Buxton, 235 

C , 242, 262 

C, Lord, 283 
Caesars, the, 264 
Calidore, Sir, 282 
Caligula's minion, 237 
Cam, The, 235 
Cambro-Briton, 230 
Candlemas, 240 
Candour, Mrs., 291 
Canticles, the, 244 



Carracci, the, 251 

Carthusian, The, 249 

Cassiopeia's chair, 271 

Cato, 289 

Cave, 232 

Cayster, 248 

Celaeno, 262 

Centaur, 286 

Cerinthus, 274 

Cesias, 249 

Cham of Tartary, 250 

changeling, 244 

Chanticleer, 250 

Chapter on Ears, ^,272 

Charact&r of the Late Elia, A, 227 

Charles of Sweden, 250 

Chartreuse, the, 262 

Chatham, 231 

Chaucer, 234 

Cheap, 230 

Cheapside, 230 

Children in the Wood, The, 263 

Chimaera, 261 

Chinese manuscript, 269 

Christie, 251 

Christ's, 234 

Christ's Hospital, 237 

Chrisfs Hospital Five-and- Thirty 

Years Ago, 236 
Chronicle, The, 231 
Clarkson, 251 
Claude, 251 
Cleombrotus, 275 
Clifford's Inn, 235 
Clinton, 231 
" Cloth," the, 269 
Cockletop, 270 
Cokes, 276 

Coleridge, 228, 233, 270 
Colet, 279 
Comberbatch, 241 



INDEX TO NOTES 



297 



Complaint of the Decay of Beggars 

in the Metropolis, A, 284 
Complete Angler, The, 242 
Confessions, The, 271 
Confucius, 270 
Congreve, 289 
Cophetua, King, 286 
Corbet, 228 

" Cornwall, Barry," 261 
Cotton, Mr., 245 
Coicntry Spectator, The, 238 
Coventry, 257 
Cowley, 283 
Crabtree, 290 
Cresseid, 285 
Cunningham, 228 
C.V. L., 263 
Cymbeline, 269 

" Cynthia of the minute," 251 
Cyril, 247 

Dagon, 262 

Dalston, 229 

Damsetas, 279 

Damascus, 235 

Dan Phoebus, 244 

Daniel, 243, 255 

Dapperwit, 290 

Debates, the, 238 

Defoe, 272 

Delectable Mountains, 236 

Delphic voyages, 284 

deodands, 242 

De Quincey, 271 

Derwentwater, 231 

Desdemona, 255 

Dido, 247 

Diogenes, 284 

Dionysius, 285 

Dis, 249 

Dissertation iipon Roast Pig, A, 269 



Distant Correspondents, 283 
Dobbin, Humphrey, 272 
Dodd, 265, 291 
Dodsley, 242 
Domenichino, 250 
Dominic, 266 
Don Quixote, 290 
Dorimant, 282 
Dornton, Old, 271 
Dream Children, 263 
Drury, Old, 258, 280 
Duchess of Half y. The, 265 
Duke's Servant, The, 266 
Dunning, 232 
Dyer, 233 

E. B., 247 

East India House, 228 

Ebion, 274 

Edwards, 282 

Elgin marbles, 286 

Elia, 227, 250 

Elia, Bridget, 246, 250, 252 

Elia, James, 250 

Elisha bear, 257 

Elizabeth, 250 

Elwes, 257 

Emanuel, 235 

Empedocles, 275 

Ephesian journeyman, 246 

Eton, 251 

Euclid, 278 

Eve, 255 

Evelyn, 255 

F , 239 

F , my godfather, 280 

Faerie Qtieene, 262 
Fain all, 290 
Fairfax, Lady, 265 
Falstaff, 240 



298 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Farley, 271 

Farquhar, 289 

Farren, Miss, 291 

Favell, 239 

Fenwick, John, 241 

Field, Mary, 232 

Field, Matthew, 233, 248 

Flaccus, 238 

flapper, 257 

Flower Pot, the, 229 

Foppington, 265 

Fr , 239 

Friar John, 244 
Fribble, 266 
Froth, Lord, 290 
Fuller, 254 
Fuseli, 271 

Garrick, David, 258 

G. D, 234 

G., My friend, 291 

Gentleman Commoner, 234 

Giordano, Lucca, 251 

Gog, 241,275 

Goldsmith, 287 

Gorgon, 261 

Grace before Meat, 262 

Grecian, 239 

Greville, Fulke, 243 

Guildhall giants, 241 

Gulliver, 280 

Guyon, Sir, 260 

H , 237 

Hallowmas, 251 
Hamlet, 231 
Harlequin, 281 
Harpies, 261 
Harrington, 235 
Harrogate, 235 
Hathaway, 237 



Haydn, 274 

Helicon, 245 

Heliogabalus, 262 

Helots, 238 

Helvellyn, 261 

Herculaneum, 230, 234 

Hercules, 2S6 

Hero, 248 

Herodotus, 276 

Hertfordshire, 251 

Hessey, 227, 228 

Hey wood, Thomas, 253 

Hobbima, 251 

Hogarth, William, 230, 268, 273 

Holy Paul, 237 

Holy Thomas, 241 

Hooker, 259 

Hoole, 228 

Horace, 238 

horologe, 256 

Hotspur, 265 

House Beautiful, the, 236 

Howe, 231 

Hugh of Lincoln, 254 

Hunt, Leigh, 275 

Hydra, 261, 271 

Hymen, 247 

Hyperion, 265 

Imperfect Sympathies, 253 
Ino Leucothea, 261 
Interpreter, the, 236 
Iris, 248 
Isabella, 281 
Isis, 23s 

Jackson, 258 
Jael, 254 
Jamblichus, 239 
Janus, 228, 234 
Jerome, 247 



INDEX TO NOTES 



299 



Jeshurun, 262 

J 11, 257 

John, Friar, 244 

John L , 264 

Johnson, 262 
Jonson, Ben, 278 
Jordan, Mrs., 264 
Jubal, 273 
Jude, 236 

Jumps, Jemmy, 272 
J. W., 284 

K., spiteful, 242 
Kemble, 254, 265, 291 
Kempis, Thomas a, 250 
Keppel, 231 

L , my friend, 287 

La Mancha, 265 
Lambert, 265 
Lapithan controversy, 287 
Lavinian shores, 244 
Leander, 248 
Lear, 285 

Le G , 239 

Legend, Ben, 267 

Legend, Sir Sampson, 267 

Legend, Valentine, 291 

Leonardo da Vinci, 253 

Lily, 279 

Linacre, 279 

Lincoln's Inn, 257 

Lions in the Tower, the, 236 

Liston, 271 

Locke, John, 231, 238 

London Bridge, 270 

London Magazine, The, 227 

Louis the Fourteenth, 230 

Lovel, 257 

L.'s governor, 237 

Lucian, 263, 285 



Lully, Raymond, 276 
Lun, 281 
Lycurgus, 279 

M., 235, 270, 278 

M , ill-fated, 239 

M , pastoral, 232 

Maccaronies, 230 

Macbeth, 268 

Macheath, 277 

Machiavel, 246 

Alackery End, in Hertfordshire, 

252 
Magdalen, 234 
Magog, 275 
Malfy, 265 
Malvolio, 277 
Mammon, 229 
Man, Henry, 231 
Manciple, 234 
Manning, 270 
Maratti, 251 
Marcion, 274 

Marmaduke T , 239 

Martha, Miss, 290 

Marvell, 256 

Maseres, Baron, 259 

matines and complines, 250 

May- Day Effusion, A, 267 

Midas, Lord, 231 

Milton, 279 

Minerva, 253 

Mingay, 259 

Mirabel, 290 

Mirandula, 239 

Modern Gallantry, 282 

Monument, the, 276 

Mopsa, 279 

Mortimer, Sir Edward, 291 

Moses, 259. 

Mount Tabor, 235 



300 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Mozart, 274 

Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist, 

245 
Mulberry Gardens, 230 
Munden, 270, 283 
Miinden^s Faj-ewell, 271 
Murray, 250 
My First Play, 280 
My Relations, 250 

Naps, 232 

Naylor, 249 

Nells and Hoydens, 265 

A^ew Year's Eve, 243 

Newcastle, Margaret, 242, 252, 285 

Niobe, 291 

Nireus, 239 

"Noon," 230 

Norfolk, 263 

North Pole Expedition, 279 

Nov , 273 

Old and the iVeto Schoolmaster, 

The, 278 
Old Benchers of the Inner Temple, 

The, 256, 257 
Ollier's edition, 236 
Ombre, 245 

On Some of the Old Actors, 264 
On the Acting of Miinden, 270 
On the Artificial Comedy of the 

Last Century, 288 
Opera Bonavenlnrce, 241 
Oriel, 235 
Origen, 247 
Orphean lyre, 231 
Orrery, 280 
Orsino, 265 
Ortelius, 278 
Otway, 291 
Oxford in the Vacation, 233 



P , Susan, 257 

Pall Mall, 251 
Palmer, 266, 280, 290 
Pam, 246 
Pamela, 279 
Parables, 277 
Paradise Lost, 247 
Parker, 247 
Parnassus, 235 
Parsons, 266 
Parthians, 240 
Paul Potter, 246 
Penn, 255 
Peter Wilkins, 238 
Phaedrus, 228 
Phillips, Thomas, 251 
Philoclea, 279 
Phoebus, 244 
Pierson, Peter, 248 
Pilgrifn's Progress, 236 
Pimpernel, 232 
Plato, 235, 283 
Pliant, Sir Paul, 290 
Plotinus, 239 
Plumer, 232, 246 
Pope, 244, 291 
Porson, 234 

Pr , 228 

Praise of Chimney-Sweepers, The, 

267 
Pratt, 231 
Prior, 258 
Procter, 228 
Propontic, 241 
Prospero, 260 
Psaltery, 264 
Public Ledgers, The, 231 
Puck, 266 
pyramids, the, 254 
Pyramus, 247 
Pythagoras, 238 



INDEX TO NOTES 



301 



Quaker ways, 255 
Quakers' Meeting, A, 24S 
Quisada, 277 

R , 277 

Rabelaesian, 262 

Rambler, the, 262 

Raphael, 251 ' 

Read, 258 

Recollectio7is of the SotitJi-Sea 

House, 229 
Relapse, The, 357 
Religio Medici, 244, 252 
Richmond, 232 
Robhi Good-Fellow, 266 
Rochester, Earl of, 268 
Rockmgham, 231 
R. N., 259 

Rosamond's Pond, 230 
Rousseau, 238 
Rowe, 281 
Rowe, Mrs., 283 
Roy, 254 
Royal Calendar, 232 

S , Granville, 277 

S , poor, 239 

St. Bartholomew, 268 

St. Bride's, 228 

S. T. C., 243 

St. Denys, 281 

St. George, 261 

St. Gothard, 283 

St. Omer's, 270 

Salopian house, 268 

Salt, Samuel, 237, 257 

Samuel, 260 

San Benito, 238 

Sans Prendre Vole, 246 

Saturnalia, 291 

Sawbridge, 232 



Scapula, 235 

Scarborough, 235 

School for Scandal, 290 

Scotus, Duns, 276 

Selden, 234, 259 

Semiramis, 286 

Seneca, 280 

Servitor, 234 

"sessa," 271 

Seven Dials, the, 230 

Shacklewell, 229, 278 

Shallow, Master, 277 

Shelbume, 231 

Shepherds, the, 236 

Sheridan, 240, 280 

Shibboleth, 254 

Shining Ones, 249 

Siddons, Mrs., 281 

Silence, Master, 277 

Sir John, 266 

Sirens, 278 

Sizar, 234 

Slender, 277 

Slipslop, Mistress, 276 

Smithfield, 278 

Smollett, 253, 254 

sock, 266 

Solon, 279 

Sosia, 235 

Southey, 262 

So2ith-Sea House, The, 229 

Spa, 245 

Spadille, 245 

Spital sermons, 286 

Steele, 240 

Stephen, Master, 276 

Sterne, Laurence, 250 

Stonehenge, 254 

Strephon, 283 

Suett, 266 

Surface, Charles, 290 



302 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Surface, Joseph, 267, 290 
Swedenborgian, 289 
Swift, 258 

" Tale of Lyddalcross," 228 

Tame, 230 

Taming of the Shrexvy The, 232 

T. and H., 228 

Tartarus, 238 

Tattle, 265 

Taylor, 228 

T e. Dr., 239 

Teazle, Sir Peter, 271, 290 
Temple, the, 235, 256 
Terence, 238 
T. H., 261 

Th , 239 

Thisbe, 247 

Thomas, 241 

Thomson, 253 

Tipp, 231 

Tishbite, the, 236 

Titan, 230 

Tobin, 237 

Tobit, 286 

Tooke, Home, 240 

Touchwood, Lady, 290 

Tristan, Sir, 282 

Tristram Shandy^ 250 

Trophonius, 249 

Twelve Caesars, the, 264 

Twickenham, 256 

T%vo Races of Men, The, 240 

Twopeny, 258 

Ulysses, 289 
Urban, 259 
Urn- Burial, 241 
Ursula, old dame, 269 
Usher, 234 
Utopia, 262, 290 



Valentine, Bishop, 247 

Valentine's Day, 247 

Vanbrugh, 265, 267 

Vandyke, 246, 285 

Varro, 280 

Vaux, 230 

Venice Preserved, 265 

Venus, 268 

Verrio, 237 

Vesta, 266 

Vittoria Corombona, 242 

Vivares, 233 

Wain Wright, 228 
Walton, Izaak, 229 
" watchet weeds," 238 
Way of the World, The, 281 
" Weathercock, Janus," 228 
Westminster Hall, 230 
Westward Ho ! 251 
Wharry, 258 

White Doe of Rylstone, The, 235 
White, James, 268 
W^hitgift, 247 
Wilding, 267 
Wilkes, 231 
Wilkins, Peter, 283 
Wishfort, Lady, 281 
Witches and Other AHght- Fears, 
260 

W n, Alice, 244 

Woollett, 233 
Woolman, 249 

W r, Sally, 284 

Wycherley, 289 

" yeoman, the," 237 
Yorick, 250, 287 

Zimmermann, 243, 249 



DEC BO 1905 



